Killer Wedding (17 page)

I
t was nearly eleven, but I was buzzed. When I got home I found a message from Paul on the machine. He'd managed to arrange some sort of settlement offer with Five Star's attorneys. I called him quickly and asked him to come over. I wasn't planning on sleeping any time soon, and Paul stayed up half the night himself. The only problem was how he was going to get here. One of Paul's eccentricities is that he refused to get a driver's license. He didn't want
them
to have him in their system. And I always wondered whether he just didn't enjoy having all his associates have to drive him around. Luckily Wes was home and, as it turned out, Holly had another broken date with Donald. They offered to pick up Paul and bring him by.

I threw my jacket on a chair and walked into the kitchen, thinking I'd put together something to sustain us through the upcoming summit meeting. Now, what was the perfect thing to serve while discussing a three-million-dollar lawsuit? Caviar? Ah, that's positive thinking.

I searched through my CD collection, looking for the right music. Odd. As I flipped through the stack, I discovered I had several discs of Arlo's mixed in. I had thought I'd gathered up all his stuff and returned it by now. I started pulling out the ones I needed to send him. When I got to Peter Gabriel's
So
I felt a momentary
pang of loss. I flicked the case open and put the CD on. Loud. One last time.

Several minutes drifted by. I flipped the light off in the kitchen and went to my office. A framed photo of Arlo and me sat on my desk. Wesley, in an effort to help me over the breakup, likes to turn the picture face down when he thinks I'm not looking. I turned it up and studied it. I had certainly looked happy.

Maybe it had been building. Maybe it had been the flirting with Honnett which was going nowhere. Maybe it was resistance to the new. Maybe I just missed the jokes.

There was a buzz at the door. What a strange mood I was in. I set the picture back on my desk. Then I turned it face down, and hurried back out to the entry hall. Had Paul arranged another ride and arrived early on his own?

“Hey, Mad. Is that my Gabriel CD you pinched?”

Standing at my front door, like I'd conjured him up out of my sad swirl of emotions, was Arlo.

“Hi.”

“Please, Mad. Don't tell me you've got company.”

“I'm expecting some.”

He gave me a hangdog expression.

“Really,” I said, smiling.

“So I have to stay outside? Is that our new rules? We're supposed to be friends, now, but only if I remain curbed?”

I laughed. And he knew he'd hooked me.

“So what you're saying is, my CDs may enter your house, but not my cute little body. Am I getting the hang of it?”

“Are you saying it sounds harsh?”

“If I promise to keep my hands off of you, will you invite me in for a drink?”

I opened the door wider and he passed quite close, sneaking in a quick, charming kiss on his way in. It was in the mouth vicinity, but it was chaste, like a good friend. Since that was what we were trying to evolve
into, good friends, I let him follow me to the kitchen where I kept the booze.

“No date tonight?” I asked it lightly, as I poured the bourbon he liked over a few cubes. I hadn't bothered to turn on the blazing overhead lights, and we stood together next to the center island, in the low glow of the light coming from the glass door of my Traulson refrigerator.

“It's hard, Mad,” he said, looking adorable. “I shouldn't have broken up with you.”

I poured myself a fresh glass of Chardonnay and sighed.

“It had been coming for a long time,” I said, comforting the guy. Which was really such a good joke, I wished I could laugh. He'd broken up with me, and now I was the one he turned to when he needed consolation.

“Maybe we should just take a break,” Arlo said after sipping from his glass.

“From breaking up?”

“Sure. Am I nuts? Everyone needs a little breather. Why shouldn't we just give the breakup a rest?”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes,” Arlo said, putting down his glass on the counter and putting his hand on my waist, just underneath my sweater.

“Oh no, sweetheart.” I put down my wineglass and removed his hand, gently pulling it out from under and placing it over the knit fabric. After all, a woman needs to draw clear boundaries.

At first it had stung me. After all we'd been through, Arlo was the one to suggest we were going nowhere in a limp balloon. It wasn't so much that I disagreed with his assessment. I loved him. But not, I suspected, in a totally fulfilled way. It was more that I hadn't been courageous enough to break it off. I'd been too happy to have the status stay indefinitely quo. And I wasn't proud of myself, either.

“Look at it this way,” Arlo said, slipping his hand underneath the back of my sweater. “We've been going
at this breakup for a few months now, and has either one of us found anyone new who could do it for us? No.”

I was relieved he hadn't waited for my answer.

“I've grown up, Mad,” he went on most sincerely. “I'm not the silly kid you remember.”

He was a comedy writer and couldn't help going for the laugh with that one. I had to chuckle. He was some 36-year-old kid.

“I know it's only been a matter of months. But think of those weeks in dog years, Mad. You love dogs. If I was a poodle, I'd have gained like a year or two of wisdom already, just since we broke up.”

“That's true.” I felt the heat of his hand on my back as he moved it a few inches higher and to the side, just below my new lace bra.

“I'm really grown up now, Madeline. I'm ready to talk about stuff.”

“Stuff?” Arlo had never, since I'd known him, been comfortable talking about stuff.

“Grown-up manlike stuff.” He nudged his finger beneath the clasp to my bra.

Uh-oh. This was one of his great talents. He had this special gift for unsnapping bras. When Arlo was in junior high, he'd stolen one of his older sister's bras, fastened it around a beach ball, and at night in the dark of his bedroom, he'd practice unsnapping it in one swift move. I think he came up with the whole idea from the Playboy Advisor. And now, twenty-five years later, it was still a skill that served him well.

As I felt a sudden, well, freedom that meant the master unsnapper had worked his magic, I was ready to protest. “Arlo…”

“I wuv you, Maddie.”

What was that? In four years Arlo Zar had never come close to using the L word.

I pulled his hands out into the open and held them there. As his mouth met mine, I said, “Did you just say you ‘wuv me'?”

“I tried to stop. I tried to date other women. I tried, Maddie, but I'm not happy. I've been talking about it to my shrink and she agrees with me.”

Oh, of course she did. That's why Arlo paid her for three sessions a week, on top of which he had her on retainer for sudden Arlo-emergencies. But no matter how many sessions he took, he had never seemed to change. I'd often wondered if he was capable of hearing any suggestions other than his own. But, now…

Arlo had been leaning me back against the cold marble top on my center island. Now he lifted me up and seated me on it and, without so much as spilling his drink, he jumped up beside me.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Hey. I thought we were going to talk.”

“We are talking.” He tried to pull my skirt up, and soon we were both laying on top of the kitchen counter on my enormous center island, with my sweater now flung somewhere, I think maybe over the toaster, and my skirt moving higher.

I laughed and pulled it down. “Talk, Arlo. More stuff.”

“You are an incredible woman, Mad. I will do whatever you want me to. If you want me to prove my wuv, I'll do it. I've grown up, I tell you. Why you wouldn't know me, I've changed so damn much.” I felt him unzipping my skirt, and sliding it off, felt it slip away, down onto the floor. “I'll do anything you tell me to.”

“Anything?”

“I'll even eat broccoli.” Arlo did not eat vegetables, so I was duly shocked.

“Tell me how you really feel about me, then.”

Arlo stopped his steady progression of unzipping and unsnapping, and pulled up on one elbow to look me in the eyes. In the low glow of the refrigerator bulb, I saw how sweet he was, how sincere. He found the bottle of bourbon and refilled his glass while I lay seminude beneath him. After a fast swig, he was ready.

“I want you back. I need you. I wuv…”

I raised my hand to his mouth, touching his lips.

“I love you, Mad. I am crazy when I don't have you to…talk to…oh…and to…play with…ah…and to…”

By then, I had a pretty good idea of what exactly else he was getting at. So it was, well,
reconciliation interuptus
, to say the very
least
about what was going on on my countertop, that at that very private moment, my phone began to ring.

“
M
adeline, it's Honnett. Am I calling too late?”

“Uh. No. I'm always up late. You know that.”

I adjusted myself by propping up on one arm. Arlo, who understood all about work calls, moved over a bit to make more room.

“I've found your African. I thought you'd like to know.”

“Albert Nbutu? Where?”

“He's staying with another Zimbabwean refugee in Altadena. I was going to go over and talk to him.”

“I'm shocked. I thought you were just shining me on about Nbutu.”

“On the contrary. The LAPD awaits your every command.”

I laughed.

“I told you I'd look into it.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what gives?”

“Nbutu is in the country without documents. Perhaps he's got information on our case and forgot to come forward, seeing as how,” he said with sarcasm, “he probably doesn't understand how our justice system works here.”

“So you're going to question him?”

“Correct. I thought you'd probably like to ride along. You could fill me in on what you know about the guy on the way out there.”

“You mean right now?”

Arlo turned and began to listen more closely. He may have heard the distant death knell to our reconciliation recreation.

“You up for it?”

“Sure. By the way, do you have dubs of the wedding videos I could take a look at?”

“That's what I mean about you,” Honnett said, “I find this African, Nbutu, you've been hot about, and do I hear any thanks? No, right away you ask for more.”

“Well?”

“Yeah, I've got a copy you can look at. Still don't believe Gantree has an alibi, do you?”

“We'll see. So you're coming by now?”

“On my way. I'll see you in ten.”

I hung up and looked at Arlo.

“Okay,” he said, “so where were we?”

“Uh, see, wait.” I disentangled a bit. “I've got to get dressed and…”

“What? Are you going out with this Honnett geek?”

“It's this murder I'm involved in. Vivian Duncan. I'm right near the end, Arlo. I've almost got it. The answer is so close. I just need to concentrate for a little bit longer.”

We both heard the key turn in the front door lock down the hall at the same time.

“Aw, shit!” I said, grabbing for my sweater.

“Damn!” Arlo said, zipping up, disgusted.

“This always happens!” I found my skirt.

Arlo helped me button. “Remind me to buy you a chain-bolt.”

“Anybody home?” called out Holly, amid a nearing herd of feet.

“Welcome,” Arlo invited the guests, “to Maddie's and my sex life. Come one, come all.”

“Oh, you two.” Holly turned on the full blast of the overhead lights, exposing Arlo shirtless and me just barely presentable. “Can't you ever just do it in the bedroom?”

“What did I miss?” Wesley asked, hurrying in behind her and then stopped cold. “Oh.” Wes took in the little drama. “If it isn't Arlo.”

“I missed you too, buddy,” Arlo told Wes, only muffled since he was pulling on his shirt over his head.

“So does this mean we need to Lysol down the countertop?”

And then Paul entered the kitchen, still talking on his cell phone. He had, thankfully, missed most of the teasing and by the time he rang off his call, we were more or less straightened up.

“Last-minute stalling tactics from the other side,” Paul said, referring to the call. “I can't believe these putzes. First they tell me they have a settlement in mind, and then they call back and say hold up before telling my client. That's bullshit! Oh, hello Arlo. Are you back?”

Arlo smiled. “Yep. Anyone want bourbon?”

Wesley, who'd been fairly quiet in the presence of the raw evidence that Arlo seemed to be back, just stood there giving me that funny look. Like, oh, we have to talk! But he turned to Paul and asked, “It's after midnight. Do you mean you're still negotiating with some corporate attorneys at this hour? Jesus! How much are they going to charge Five Star for this?”

“Beats me. I just wish the assholes wouldn't start jerking me around. I told them we had a firm deadline—midnight. And it's forty minutes past and they're giving me grief.”

I found my bag and pulled out my lipstick just as the doorbell rang.

They all looked at me.

“That's Honnett.”

Holly looked amazed. She pulled me to the side and held up three fingers, whispering “
Three
?”

Zelli, Arlo, and now Honnett. Yes, I was having a busy night.

“Why not?” I whispered back, and then turned to the group assembled in my kitchen.

“I think I'm onto something in that Vivian Duncan
deal. I have to find out. If I'm right, this should be over soon. I just have got to go.”

Wesley turned and asked, “So what about our meeting?”

“Can you stick around? Holly, you'll find some homemade ice cream in the freezer. And I just put on a fresh pot of coffee before…”

The doorbell rang again.

“She's crazy,” Holly said conversationally to the room, dismissing me.

“Nutty as a jar of Skippy,” Arlo agreed.

“Did someone say Maddie made some ice cream?” Paul asked.

“One scoop or two?” I heard Wes ask, ever the pleasant host, as I ran to answer the front door.

 

It was almost one-thirty in the morning when Honnett turned his old Mustang up the quiet street in Altadena, cutting the engine and gliding to a stop at the curb in front of a small house. The corner streetlight didn't reach this far down the block. A neighbor had left his back porch light on and a house across the street had a car parked in front of it, full of teenagers. It took off the moment our car slowed down.

“Making out, probably,” I suggested.

From the backseat of the Mustang, Detective John Martinez laughed softly. “It's sex, drugs, or rock 'n roll.”

Honnett, in the driver's seat, said, “John's just reciting the three reasons kids hang out in their cars. Hey, you ready to go?”

“Sure,” I answered.

Honnett looked at me, amused, and he kept his voice low. “Not you, Bean. John and I will go up and check it out. This house belongs to a cousin of Nbutu. She lives here alone. Her kids are grown. If Nbutu is in there and if the place is cool, we'll bring him out to talk. If you can keep quiet, you can stand over there and listen.”
He gestured to the only tree in the small front yard. “If we need any information, we'll ask. Otherwise, keep yourself contained. Got it?”

“Right.”

I stood by the car as Martinez and Honnett approached the front door. After a few minutes of knocking a light came on over the porch. I saw a woman tightening a blue robe around herself in the doorway and then the formalities of badges being shown amid a low rumble of voices. The next thing I knew, both men had been admitted to the home.

Then all was quiet.

I began to hear a faint sound at a distance and strained to make it out. Then louder, I could feel the pump of the rhythmic bass to some rap song as the sound filled the street, louder and louder. I turned to see the same car we'd seen earlier, roaring up the side street, windows down, music blasting.

The car slowed to a stop. The blare of the radio pierced the quiet night, a rapper screaming about “da bitch wid da attitude,” as the car idled a few feet away. I saw two young girls in the back, with a boy in a tank top, his arm around them both. The driver leaned out his window, pounding the door along with the driving rhythm, and yelled to me.

“Hey, mama. You want to go for a drive with me? We'll have some fun, you sweet thing.”

“You boys want to spend some time talking to cops tonight?” I jerked my hand toward the house, and smiled pleasantly.

“I told you,” the boy in the back yelped.

“Hey, your loss,
chica
,” the driver said with a smirk, and then the rap-mobile peeled off down the deserted road.

A few minutes passed and I became accustomed to the sounds of the night. The simple landscaping around the yard next door and the yard next to that became familiar shapes I could now decipher in the dark, cool night. The gentle wind rustled the shrubs, moved
through the slender trees, chilled me. My eyes adjusted to the low light, filtering dark gray bushes from darker gray fence. There. What was that? I saw a strange movement near the front door of the small house. There in the thick plants. I stared at the area, watching closely.

Nothing. Then a rustling movement, again, from among the sharp, jutting leaves.

An animal, I thought, worried. A pet, perhaps. Or a rat. I looked to the house, but the door was shut tight. Honnett and Martinez were inside and I and the rats were out.

I stared intently, gray upon gray upon gray, watching that porchside bush rustle again. A cat, I thought. Maybe a…

A hand covered my face. Another arm strangled me. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. I could hardly breathe. I had been grabbed, all at once, from nowhere, grabbed from behind.

My God, I thought. Oh my God! Those kids. Those damn kids had sneaked back and attacked me.

I tried to squirm free, to see who held me so tightly. But the assailant had pinned both of my arms with one of his. His hold was strong, unyielding, fierce as iron. This man was taller, larger than those boys had been. More cunning, silent. I tried to kick, but the tree trunk of a man against whose body I was trapped felt none of it.

In an instant, I was overpowered. Completely helpless. Completely vulnerable. I was caught in the night and unable to move or fight back or yell, not forty feet away from the illusory protection of two cops, now inside.

The hand that held my face was hot, rough-knuckled, enormous. I was sure, now, it must be Nbutu.

“Please,” his voice whispered from behind my ear. “Please, not a word, not a sound.”

I stopped fighting, tried to control my breathing, get my heart to stop racing, my brain to think.

“I mean no harm,” he whispered in my ear.

I squirmed harder then, kicking back with my heel into his shin, almost twisting my head away from his tight grip. It was only due to the fact that he was not intent on smothering me that he almost lost his grasp, but he pulled me back firmly and I could tell I'd never again have that slight chance. Surely, I thought, surely Honnett would be coming out. Now, I thought. Now! Come out of the house!

“You must stay still. I will take you somewhere and leave you there. I do not wish to hurt you,” he said.

Leave me somewhere? I could imagine my dead body, left somewhere, some ravine. Some landfill. Some…

“I don't want to hold you, you see? I don't want to hurt you. But I must leave now. I must escape.”

Nbutu pulled me back into the bushes that bordered on the yard.

No, I thought, this was getting worse. Not back into the bushes.

“Don't be frightened,” he whispered. “I will let you go.”

And then, remarkably, he did just that.

I spat on the ground as his tight fist released my mouth.

“Don't scream,” he pleaded with me. I spun around and faced him, shocked to be free. Stunned to have a chance to run.

“I let you go,” he pleaded. “Do not turn me in!”

The large black man stood cowering in the bushes and something stopped me from yelling my lungs off. Something in the way he stood there, trembling, not able to go through with the abduction.

“I must get away,” Nbutu said, staring at me. “I can't take you, just let me go.”

I trotted several feet away, out of his range and then stopped. “Turn yourself in right now,” I said, “and I won't say anything about you grabbing me.”

“No.”

“Turn yourself in
RIGHT NOW!
” I yelled. “I'll get you a lawyer.”

“I can't,” he pleaded. “I can't. I can't.”

The front door opened and Honnett and Martinez came running.

“That him?” shouted Martinez, gun drawn.

“Back away!” Honnett yelled to me. “Get away!”

Somehow, I couldn't. I was afraid, suddenly, of the police. What would they do if they suspected I'd been held by this man? If I stepped away, would they shoot him? What was really happening?

Quickly, Honnett was there, spinning Albert Nbutu around, pushing him face first into the tall bushes, handcuffing him behind his back.

“Did he hurt you?” Honnett asked me, his voice husky. I'd never seen him treat anyone as roughly as he handled Nbutu. Was this emotion I was watching? The cool Honnett coming a bit unglued?

“Nothing happened,” I said, meeting Albert's eyes. “He seems scared.”

“What are you doing out here, Albert?” Martinez asked him, his voice aggressive. “Trying to run?”

“No,” I heard myself saying. “He must have been taking a walk.”

The men looked at Nbutu and then looked at me.

“Are you arresting him?” I asked.

“We're
talking
to him. If he cooperates, we may not have to drag him downtown. It's up to him.”

“But the handcuffs?”

“Albert doesn't mind the cuffs, do you, Albert?” Martinez was not as tall as Honnett, but he was powerfully built.

Just then two patrol cars turned up the small street, flashing lights but with their sirens cut. The officers walked up and talked to the detectives. Apparently Honnett had a search warrant and the men entered the small house. I could hear the protests from Albert's cousin as she wailed from inside.

“What we want to know about, Albert,” Martinez said, “is what happened at the wedding at the museum? You dropped out of sight, pal, which is very suspicious.
But you…you probably got a reasonable explanation, don't you? So why don't you just go ahead and explain.”

Albert Nbutu was frightened. Very frightened. In the dim light given off by the front porch and the open door, he looked to be older than I'd first guessed.