Killer Wedding (8 page)

“Of course I did. He never came home. I called everyone, even his relatives, the ones that came to town for the wedding.” She sniffed. “Nobody's seen him.”

“He's probably just upset.”

“
He's
upset?” She looked at me, aghast, her point of a chin quivering. “
I'm
upset! And I don't want to tell the police he's missing,” Sara whined on, before blowing her nose in the handful of tissues.

Why, I wondered, had she come to tell me all this?

“My grandfather says,” Sara dabbed at her eyes, carefully, “that you are friends with Chuck Honnett.”

That's right. Lt. Honnett, the old school buddy of the missing bridegroom's father, should be told about this.

“If we go to him, he'll have to make a report. Make it official. But Grandfather thought that you…well, could you ask him to find Brentie for me? Sort of off the record?”

“Sara. They don't do that. You need to make an official…”

“
No
. I will not go to the police and tell them my new husband hasn't had the balls to come home on his own wedding night!”

I
t was turning out to be one of those days.

“Don't expect me to cry.”

Vivian Duncan's daughter, Beryl, with her short brown hair, and her fierce gray eyes, and her navy Brooks Brothers suit, appeared calm.

“Okay,” I said, folding a kitchen towel.

Beryl had insisted it was imperative that we meet about her mother's business, right away. When I tried to talk her out of it, she insisted on coming over. I felt myself sinking another inch deeper into wedding consultant quicksand.

Wes says people like to bounce things off of me. I make people comfy. It's my curse. Holly thinks it's less complicated than that. She said people hang around because of the food. I wondered, looking at Beryl: succor or sugar?

“Here's the irony,” Beryl was saying. “Now that my mother is dead, everybody feels so sorry for me.” Her voice trailed down low. “Which is really funny. You'd have to know my family to get it. Vivian was not the traditional mother. She had very high standards. Extremely high. I never…” Beryl took a deep breath and plunged on. “I was a disappointment. When she found the time to notice me. Now that Vivian is dead, I'm finding it hard to feel very sad. She was not a nice woman.”

It might surprise you, but listening to Beryl Duncan trash her dead mother didn't strike me as shocking. It all depends on what you expect from people. What I expect is: people are weird. This viewpoint has always worked for me. It allows for a lot of, frankly, odd behavior to cross my path without need for constant judgement.

My feeling is, no one can know what's going on with another human being, no matter how many daytime talk shows one might watch. I'm practical. Since I don't have the energy to be walking a mile in everyone else's bloody moccasins, I just give everybody
credit
for having suffered through lousy childhoods and leave it at that.

In fact, it's kind of a good guideline for living. Cut 'em some slack. Tread softly. Be careful how you judge. I figure you never know what hellacious pain the average jerk is in, so be kind. Come to think of it, this attitude of mine may explain why people I hardly know keep turning up. And like Beryl, they tend to unload.

“Do you think I might have a taste of that?” Beryl was checking out the large bucket of homemade ice cream on the counter.

Or, then again, maybe Holly was right about the food thing.

I'd been working on a new ice cream recipe with my brand new toy when Beryl had insisted on a visit.

“It's almost ready.” I went to a drawer and pulled out a silver teaspoon.

“Vivian was not cut out to be a mother,” Beryl continued, perching on the edge of a stool, resting her plain hands on the marble countertop. She didn't wear any rings, I noticed, and her nails were short and unpolished. “It was all about her. Always. The rest of us didn't exist. Or, no—we existed as
accessories
. When I was very young, she used to order her hairstylist to bleach my hair, too, so Vivian's blond would seem real. I was only four. She was embarrassed at the preschool mothers' day luncheon or something. She thought I was
throwing off her image, I guess. And I was so young, what did I know? I thought mommy hated me.”

See what I mean? Everybody has had a lousy childhood. Even if they weren't beaten, there are still scars.

Beryl ran her hand though her cropped brown hair. “And do you want to know what's really pathetic? I just stopped coloring it. Years of therapy, let me tell you, just to free myself from peroxide.”

I pushed a spatula into the ice cream. Firm to hardish. Nice. Not that I wasn't sympathetic to Beryl and her “issues,” exactly, but then I couldn't let my pet project melt, either. In any case, it didn't seem to matter. She just kept on talking.

“I realize the woman is dead now, but Vivian was an unhappy woman. She was a hollow, miserable, self-centered, ego-driven…”

Beryl needed to get it all out. When she took another breath, I fully expected her to speak even more ill of the dead. Instead, she seemed to run out of venom. “What flavor is that?”

“It's experimental. I call it Deep, Dark Brown Sugar.”

“Really.” Beryl picked up a silver teaspoon and fiddled with it.

Although it was not quite lunch hour, was there ever really a wrong time for ice cream?

“By the way,” Beryl said, “if I can ask…why did you tell all those stories to the police?”

I looked up at her, drawing a blank.

“Last night,” she said. “You really slammed my father.”

“They get pretty pissed if you don't answer direct questions,” I said. “I've found this out through past experience.”

“So who cares what the police think?” Beryl had the typical lawyer's viewpoint.

“Sorry, Beryl. Your dad was fighting with your mother last night. Other people may have heard them. I don't think the police will necessarily…”

Lest I forget, in her everyday life Beryl was a tough
lawyer, and by the tone of her comments, I was getting a dose of her lawyer style. Beryl's look of intense, oh-give-me-a-break-ness stopped me cold.

“Can we cut the crap? Someone broke Vivian's neck. They say she couldn't have jumped. They don't think she fell. So what does that make it? Cops don't have much imagination. Naturally, they figure my father murdered Vivian.”

“Did they arrest him?”

“Not yet.”

“Then there may be other suspects.”

She met my gaze. “I have a lovely alibi for the time after I left my mother at the museum.”

“Oh.”

“Ah, you're surprised. As it happens, I was a guest on an Internet chat show for the full hour between eight and nine last night. My sources at Parker Center tell me Vivian was killed sometime after eight-fifteen. So I'm in the clear. But my poor father isn't so lucky.”

I couldn't help myself. I started wondering who else might have wanted to see Vivian Duncan dead. And just because one is typing away on an Internet chat, is there really no way to get another person to continue typing for you while you slip away? Or…

“So why are you doing that?” she asked, swerving the topic back to ice cream. By now, I was on subject-shift alert and took it in stride.

I had scooped mounds of the fresh Deep, Dark Brown Sugar ice cream onto a tray. I was starting to squeeze and pat them, using plastic wrap to protect my hands, into perfectly sculpted palm-sized balls.

“After I mold them into works of art,” I explained, with just the right touch of modesty, “they go into the freezer. Three hours. Then we'll roll them…”

“Roll them?”

“In toppings. Like shredded coconut or bittersweet shavings or chopped nuts and cinnamon or mini white chocolate chips. Each one different. They should look nice piled up on a platter.”

I've often found myself settling down, destressing, by the simple steps and movements necessary in working with food. As Vivian's mixed-up daughter sat there watching my hands go about their swift work, the rhythm of ice cream molding seemed to have a settling effect on Beryl Duncan as well. A little more thoughtfully, then, she introduced yet another subject.

“Aren't you a little curious why I'm here?”

“Curious?” I looked up at her and smiled. “Beryl, I'm curious about everything. Trust me. It's one of my most endearing weaknesses. Or so my friends keep telling me.”

“Then why haven't you asked?”

“I figured you would tell me when you were ready. I imagine your mother's death is a terrible shock.”

For a split second I caught sight of an expression that might resemble sadness, but it was quickly replaced by her usual disapproving facade. “Well, it's about her wretched business. Who is going to take over Mother's work? She's got weddings scheduled for two years solid.”

I stopped patting my ice cream balls. All those poor future brides, I thought. Now here were young women who were probably weeping over the loss of Vivian Duncan.

“Mother told me you were buying her company. Well, actually, that's not quite true. Vivian never told me anything. Whisper told me. But now, Vivian is dead and she's left a terrible mess. Anyway, the point is, the reason I rushed over here today is, I think you should do the weddings.”

I had just spent the better part of last night trying to disentangle myself from Vivian's clawish dreams. But here I was again, just like in one of those unalterable recurring nightmares, sinking deeper and deeper, unable to wriggle out from the death grasp of Vivian's determination.

“Beryl, it was all a mistake. I never wanted Vivian's
company. Besides, I'm in no position to buy it. It was all something Vivian was dreaming up.”

“Don't tell me that. I can't cope with that!”

“Why don't you have some ice cream?” I suggested. “We'll figure something out.” I pulled down two pink bowls from my Metlox collection.

“Deep, Dark Brown Sugar,” she said, after a thoughtful spoonful. “It's brilliant. But what's that other flavor that makes it seem so intense?”

It always came. They always want to know the secret ingredient.

“My secret,” I said conspiratorially, like a magician revealing his trick, “is sour cream.”

“Wow.”

“You have to add it just before the ice cream begins to set.”

Beryl regarded me. “So will you help me?” She had finished her ice cream. “Let's leave buying the business out of it. Will you help me?”

“Why not Whisper Pettibone? Isn't he the best choice?”

“Yes. Whisper has the master planner in his office and he should be doing all of this work! But who knows where that man is? I've been trying to call him all night and all morning, but I can't find him. He won't pick up his cell phone. And he's not answering my pages, either.” She sighed. “He was very close to Vivian. He's probably a mess.”

“I'm sure he'll turn up.” I
hoped
he'd turn up. And soon. I couldn't help but notice the sucking sound as the quicksand rose over my ankles.

“Look, please, could you just do me this favor? The master planner sits on Whisper's desk. Just go down there and get the schedule, so we can start making calls. I'm late for a meeting as it is. I'm getting a good defense attorney for my dad. Just in case.”

She placed a small key ring, which contained two keys, on the island counter between us.

“I'd like to help you. Just so you understand that I
will not be taking on any weddings, okay? As long as…”

“Thanks! You're great,” she cut me off. “When you get the date book, if you'd call all the brides, that would be a start.”

“You want
me
to call?”

Beryl looked at me from under plain eyelids that had probably never held a dab of eyeshadow. “I've never been married, okay? I specialize in divorce. I don't know how to talk to those women. Can't you
smooze
them or something?”

“Schmooze,” I corrected.

“You're perfect. Look, Madeline. I've had you checked out. You are smarter than you look.”

I glanced up at her.

“I mean, for a caterer.”

“Hmm. Thanks.”

“You know what I mean. You know a little more than just how to add sour cream to bring out the flavor. I think,” she continued looking straight at me, “that you're interested in what happened to Vivian. You told me yourself, you're curious. And you're a natural detective. One of your clients was killed last year and the word was you were responsible for finding the killer. Isn't that right?”

“Well…”

Okay, I couldn't help myself. I
was
curious. Why had young bridegroom Brent and slimy old Whisper Pettibone both disappeared? Had they, I thrilled, slipped away together? On the young man's wedding night? And, really, there were so many other questions bubbling to the surface.

“I think you could help me, and not just by calling a few brides. I think you could probably save my poor dad a whole lot of grief,” she said, standing and handing me the key to Whisper's office, “if you would kindly help figure out who killed my mother.”

T
he 400 block of South Melwood Drive offered a jumble of retail establishments located in gracious two-story buildings that dated from the forties. Gourmet delis and upscale pooch groomers sat side-by-side with specialty dry cleaners and French bakeries. Here, several blocks of shops and cafés vied for neighborhood customers across wide Wilshire Boulevard from the city's chicest boutiques. For Beverly Hills, south of Wilshire passed for low-rent.

Above these shops, up on the second floors, various anonymous offices went almost unnoticed by the foot traffic on the street below. These were the types of businesses for whom appointments were discreet, and services could be contracted with a minimum of publicity.

Between the storefront belonging to Hilda, European Tailoring and Alterations at 409 South Melwood, and Melwood Fine Wines at 411, a stairway led up one flight and ended at a landing where two doors faced each other. On one dark, heavy, paneled door was a small brass plaque announcing
VIVIAN DUNCAN WEDDINGS, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
. Across the landing, stood a matching door. On it, was simply the word
PRIVATE
marked in small brass letters. Apparently, for the past twenty-four years, Vivian had turned right at the top of the stairs, while her devoted assistant, Ted “Whisper” Pettibone, had turned left.

I climbed the granite stairs, leaving the bustle of noonday traffic down below as the street level door closed slowly behind me. So I wasn't really sure if I heard a strange noise coming from the floor up above.

I stopped, midway up the staircase, hyperalert, listening hard. No further noise was audible.

And anyway, why shouldn't there be noise? Just because I was approaching the offices of a woman who had died, that didn't mean there couldn't be someone about. Where, after all, was Whisper? Party planners have a very finely tuned sense of duty. No matter the emergency, the party must go on. And that went double for weddings.

Wait. I
did
hear something this time.

I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial button. A few moments later I heard Wesley answer the phone.

“Yes?”

“Wesley? It's me. I'm over on South Melwood.”

“I got your note. So you're going to take over Vivian's wedding clients now?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Well, not unless it's absolutely necessary.” I waited a beat, then added, “So do you want to kill me?” I leaned against the cool wall, still halfway up the narrow staircase between 409 and 411 South.

“You know, for a tough chick, you sure seem to let people push you around.”

“I know. I'm working on it. But here's the thing. I told Beryl Duncan that I'd find her mother's wedding files. I'm just about at Whisper's office, and…”

“Yes?”

“I thought I heard a noise,” I mumbled, feeling terribly idiotic.

“You wimpin' out?”

“It's spooky inside this staircase. Very otherworldish. But now that I have you talking in my ear, I am ready to rock.”

“We are quite a team.”

“Aren't we? So now I'm going to go up the stairs. Hey, where are you anyway?”

“Driving over Mulholland. I'm going to help Paul move some of his books. You know, I kind of promised him awhile back.”

In addition to his lawyerly skills, Paul Epstein was a man of many outstanding and often odd qualities. Like a mad genius. His résumé, if he would ever commit anything about himself to paper, would be amazing. He played seven instruments beautifully. He'd been a Marine in Nam. He couldn't part with a single book he'd ever read, and I believe he read just about every book published. And, due to his passionate belief that conspiracy theorists were the only clear-headed thinkers in the country, he had designed a stealth lifestyle, always underground, always on the move, never at one address for longer than nine months.

I reached the landing, faced the door marked
PRIVATE
, and knocked. After a few seconds, I pulled out the key ring Beryl had given me.

“So, what gives?” Wes asked. “Are you…vmmph…mphet?”

“Wesley?” The phone just spat out static. Great. Wes must have been driving through one of the many annoying dead zones in L.A.'s cellular grid. In the hills, that wasn't so unusual.

“So what's happening?” Wes asked, perfectly clearly.

“I'm trying the keys. The first one doesn't work.” As I slipped the second key into the lock, I hitched up my shoulder to hold the tiny cell phone up to my ear. Using both hands, the second key turned easily in the lock and, twisting the doorknob, I felt the door opening.

Then, bam! All hell broke loose. Somehow, the tiny upper landing was instantly filled with men. Big men. Shouting men. Men with guns drawn and pointed at me. Large hands shoved my back, flattening me against the door jamb as the doorknob to Whisper Pettibone's office flew out of my hands, and the door slammed wide open.

“Wes!” I shrieked, trying to grab my cell phone before it fell.

Static on the other end. Dead zone. Shit.

“Wes!”

“SHADDAP! NOW!”

A man's hand grabbed my wrist and jerked it behind me. With my faced pressed into the wall, I couldn't see anything. But I felt my cell phone slip and go crashing down the stairs as I felt the rush of several massive men push past me, entering the office I'd just unlocked.

“Who the hell are you?” I yelled, feeling an adrenal rush of clarity replace the fear. I tried to make sense of it. Where had they come from?

Hell! They'd been in Vivian's office all along. So, they were either the guys who had killed Vivian. Looking for something. Or…

“Are you
cops
?” I yelled, as I heard the sound of men scuffling

“LAPD! Let's see some I.D. Now!”

Holy shit! I'd walked right into the middle of some police ambush. Dehumanized in under five seconds.

“Madeline Bean,” I said, trying to dig through my bag for my driver's license. I took it out and handed it to the man. “Vivian Duncan's daughter sent me here.”

“Cuff her,” one of the cops said.

“What? You can't do that!”

I felt cold, hard metal as my wrists were cuffed. Strong hands grabbed my shoulder, a little less brutally, and turned me around to face a tall, black cop. Beyond him, in the open doorway to Whisper's office, the floor was covered with dumped files and ripped photos.

I turned to look into Vivian's office. The door now stood wide open. The same landslide of papers could be seen. A chair was knocked over. A silver candy dish stood empty on a desk littered with ripped notebooks.

“Oh my God.”

A young, good-looking officer, wearing an LAPD windbreaker, came back to the hallway. “It's just like the other one, sergeant. The whole office is destroyed.”

“You mean they were ransacked?” I asked, feeling a little sick at the sight of the aftermath of all that fury.

Another officer came to the entry landing and made his report. “The computer is history. Just like the other one.”

“Smashed up?” the sergeant asked.

“Something like that.”

And then he looked back at me. “So you claim you had nothing to do with any of this? Is that what we're supposed to believe?” He looked down at my license. “What did you say your name was? Bean?”

“Madeline Bean. I'm a caterer.”

The first officer disappeared back into the offices of Whisper Pettibone. I heard him say to his buddy, from deep inside where I'm sure he didn't think he would be overheard, “Glad we got her in cuffs. Wouldn't want an unauthorized caterer running loose in Beverly Hills.”

“We had this place staked out,” the sergeant said. “Where'd you get that key?”

“Sergeant…?” I tried to read his name from the pin on his shirt. So I could have Paul sue the city and cite the name of the correct asshole.

“Leeland.”

The door from the street opened and several more police officers climbed the stairs. I could see some of their uniforms. Beverly Hills cops. And behind them, it looked like some guys in street clothes. One was carrying a camera case. It was getting to be a regular law enforcement convention.

“You're in a lot of trouble, Miss Bean. Better tell me about the key,” Leeland said.

“
I'm
in a lot of trouble? Get my lawyer, you dip!”

“You don't get a lawyer. You haven't been arrested. Just shut up with your big threats and answer the question. We know there were three keys. One was Mrs. Duncan's, which we have. The other belonged to the assistant, Pettibone. A third one is supposed to be for Mrs. Duncan's husband and you're not him. So explain how you got a duplicate key.”

I tried to calm down. “I told you. Vivian Duncan's daughter gave it to me. Maybe it came from her father, I don't know. She couldn't find Whisper Pettibone and she asked if I could do her a favor and help with some of the wedding work.”

Behind the trio of BHPD uniforms and the police photographer, a plain-clothes detective arrived on the scene. He reached us at the top of the stairs and looked us over. Me in my khaki shorts and black tank top, handcuffed, amidst several bulky, sweating cops.

“Found her entering private premises with an illegally obtained key, sir. Under questioning, she admitted the key did not belong to her. Says she's a caterer.”

“You need her in cuffs?” he asked.

“I'm pretty dangerous,” I suggested.

Keeping his expression stoic, Sergeant Leeland set me loose under the watchful eye of the new top man at the scene, Detective Chuck Honnett.

“Sorry, ma'am,” Leeland muttered. “You were in the wrong place at the…”

“Thanks, Lloyd. I've got it from here.”

I rubbed my wrists. Not because they hurt. Just to emphasize the point that I'd been handcuffed. Me. A law-abiding citizen. A favor-doer. An unarmed caterer, for God's sake. What could be less threatening?

“You okay?” Detective Honnett took my hand gently and turned it over, checking out my wrist.

The guilt thing worked like a charm on Honnett. It was one of his more endearing qualities. “Have a seat,” he offered, indicating the top step. I sank down and he joined me. Behind us, the commotion of various and sundry investigators filled the small, enclosed space. As I sat there with Honnett, more criminalists joined the investigation.

“So who tore up Vivian's and Whisper's offices? The same people who killed Vivian?” I asked.

“We'll see,” Honnett said. “We're just getting started on this one.”

In the stairwell, the walls around us strobed from the
reflected flashes coming from inside the open office door.

“So, where'd you get the key?”

“Beryl Duncan came to my house. Vivian's daughter. She pretty much bulldozed me. She demanded that I help her get the wedding plans so she could notify brides about her mother's death.”

“And that's all you know about any of this?”

“Sort of.” I liked to bug him. Sitting next to Honnett on the stairs was rather nice.

“Don't screw with me, Bean,” he said, weary.

“Excuse me, Detective Honnett,” the young handsome officer said. Honnett looked up. “There's a closet in the back room that's locked. It's the room with the copier machine, so maybe it's just a locked supply closet. Leeland wants to know if we should break it down.”

I suddenly thought of the key ring, still hanging in the door lock.

“Honnett. I've got another key. There.”

The young cop pulled the key out of the door and walked back into Whisper's office.

Just then, downstairs, the door to the street opened once more.

“Maddie?”

“Wesley!”

Wes bounded up the stairs, two at a time, his lanky frame hiding the strength of a long distance runner.

“Damn it, Madeline, you had me frantic! I called 9-bloody-1-1 and they said there were already six officers out at this address. I thought you were dead!”

“Hey! Honnett!” We heard the shout coming from deep inside Whisper's office. “Get in here quick!”

We followed on Honnett's heels, charging back through the torn-up office, moving past the entry room and down a hallway. One room, larger than the rest, I pegged as Whisper's own office; several others were used to store files. All were in a shambles. The back room held office equipment. Leeland and several men stood outside this room. Wes and I tried to follow Hon
nett as he made his way back, but we were stopped at the door.

“Look at this,” Leeland was saying.

“Son of a bitch,” I heard Honnett respond.

Then I turned sideways and slid past the beefy cop blocking my view.

At the back of the equipment room, next to the copier, the closet door was open. Inside, shelves held boxes and cartons, each ripped open, revealing the office's extra supplies of coffee sweetener, Hershey's Kisses, and tea bags. On the floor, half inside the closet and half out, stretched the body of Ted “Whisper” Pettibone.