Weapons of Mass Distraction (33 page)

“I don’t have the heart to clear it,” she said, when we entered. It probably didn’t help matters that we gingerly came through the open front door and crunched over the broken glass left behind from a shattered display case. She didn’t even ask why we still wore our dresses over our clothes.

“We have something to tell you that will make you feel better,” said Lily.

“There’s nothing that could make me feel better right now,” replied Sharon. “I’ve lost everything. The insurance money will never come through in time to get my brides their… what are you wearing?” Sharon peered more closely at us. She got up and stepped nearer, her mouth dropping open. “Is that your wedding dress?”

“Yep,” said Lily, breaking into a smile.

“But… how?”

“When you asked us to investigate, you were right. The same gang of thieves were targeting the other local wedding stores. Tonight, they did this,” Lily waved her hand around, and grinned “and we were here at the right time, ready to follow them.”

“You got my dresses back?” Sharon looked from Lily to me for confirmation and we both nodded proudly.

“Yes, we got all of them,” I told her. “The police caught them before they could transfer all your dresses. There’re a few missing, but almost everything they stole from here will be easy to identify. I can make some calls and try and speed up the process.”

“I don’t know what to say. How can I ever thank you?"

"Don't thank me, thank Lily," I told her. "She did all the work. I just caught the grand finale."

"I thought everything was gone, everything except…” Sharon stopped and gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as she looked at Lily. “I know exactly how to say thank you. Come with me.” She barely seemed to care as we crunched over the glass, tracking some of it into the fitting room. We followed her through the curtains, into the storage area beyond, and then to a door. She unlocked it, ushering us into a small room. We stepped inside and Sharon flicked on the lights, illuminating a stunning dress on the dressmaker’s model. I recognized it immediately as the dress Lily had turned away because it was too expensive. Sneaking a look at Lily, I knew she recognized it too.

“I saw a little tear in the lace so I brought it back here to repair earlier today. That’s why I couldn’t do the last alterations on yours until tomorrow.” Sharon pointed to an area on the lace, and I saw nothing but perfection. “I remembered you liked this one more than the dress you chose. Please, take it. I’ll refund you for the dress you already bought.”

“I couldn’t,” Lily breathed. “It’s too much. It’s…”

“Yours,” said Sharon. “Free. Take it as my thank you.”

“No, no, I really can’t,” Lily insisted. “Thank you, but I can’t. Lexi investigated really and I just…”

“I barely did anything. It was Lily,” I told Sharon. Sure, I asked a few questions and undertook some surveillance, but Lily bore the brunt of the workload. It would be unfair of me to take any credit. “I just got shot at a couple of times after pissing people off.”

“That’s true,” agreed Lily.

“Please take the dress. I want you to have it,” Sharon insisted. “You’ve earned it.”

Lily nearly bowled Sharon over when she threw her arms around her. “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered over and again. “I love it.”

My cell phone rang as Lily shimmied out of the dress she liberated from the thieves so I excused myself. I walked from the little dressmaking room where dreams came true into the fitting room. The number was unregistered, but that wasn’t new for me. My number got around in my daily business. Speaking of which, I had two messages from Solomon still to listen to and a lot of explaining to do.

“Hello?”

“Lexi? It’s Marnie. Marnie Vasquez.”

“Marnie! Hi! How are you feeling?” I asked, pleased that she sounded so strong.

“A lot better. The doctor says I was really lucky. I was poisoned, you know.”

“I know. We think it was in the coconut water you drank.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much. It was the only thing I drank at my mom’s house and it got me thinking. There’s not a lot you can do in the hospital, you know.”

“Tell me about it.” I didn’t mean that literally, but Marnie continued. “I'm sorry to call so late. I was thinking a lot about my mom and I remembered she gave me something when she visited me last month. She said I should hold onto it, just in case something ever happened to her. I asked her what she meant at the time, but she didn’t want to talk about it; and then we got busy doing other things, and I didn’t really think about it again. Recently, I remembered it and now I believe this must have been what she meant. In case anyone hurt her.”

“What did she give you?”

“A DVD.”

“Have you watched it?”

“No, but I have it here with me at the hospital. My uncle brought my bag and some clean clothes and it’s in there. I have my laptop here too, but I wanted to tell you first. I thought if I watched it, and didn’t like it, maybe I wouldn’t want to tell anyone about it, and Mom always brought me up to be honest.”

“You did the right thing. Does anyone else know about it? Your uncle?”

“No. No one.”

“Okay,” I said, the wheels in my mind spinning. Whatever was on that DVD was important enough for Lorena to hide it. Perhaps she meant to use it as insurance since we already agreed she knew her life was in danger. It could be the key to everything. If the killer even suspected Marnie had it, however, her life could be in danger again. It was imperative that I immediately went to her to discover together what the DVD revealed. “Don’t say a word to anyone. I’m on my way.”

Chapter Twenty

I asked Solomon to meet me at the hospital, promising to explain everything when I got there. If he were pissed that I’d gotten into danger — again — and ignored his calls, it didn’t show once we were finished watching the DVD.

The quiet in the small hospital room was significant as we each digested what we saw and heard. I sat on the edge of Marnie’s bed, who was tucked under the covers, one arm resting on top and the IV bag off to her side. Solomon leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, his face thoughtful.

Marnie broke the silence. “My mother should have taken this to the police months ago. She might still be alive.”

“She was scared.” I took her hand and held it as we all retreated into our own thoughts again.

I couldn’t imagine how Lorena Vasquez got through the past couple of years. Her story was long and detailed, but it gave us everything we needed to go to the police. She told us about the night she and two friends, Jim Schwarz and Karen Doyle, witnessed a murder during a Simonstech party that was in full swing. There was nothing they could do to prevent it. They were in a third floor corridor, looking down and talking about how nice the grounds were, and how lucky they were to work for such a great company that really looked after its employees. It was then they noticed their colleague Avril Sosa running across the garden, a man behind her. As they watched, he grabbed her, his hands going around her neck.

Lorena told us that the killer looked up when his victim stopped fighting, and stopped clawing at him, and his hands loosened from around her neck, when he saw them in the window, looking down on him like judges. But she wasn’t sure until later that the three of them were actually seen. She described how they watched the killer take Avril Sosa’s body away. As she spoke, she wiped away tears and struggled to continue. "He ran away and then he came back," said Lorena, " and he just carried her away. We told each other Avril was drunk, that she just passed out. We were drinking too. Karen videoed it all on her cell phone."

As the three friends were discussing what they saw, frightened and panicking, they decided they couldn’t be sure what it was, or if it had somehow gotten embellished. They finally agreed perhaps they hadn’t witnessed a murder at all. Maybe Avril just collapsed. Maybe she was drunk. After all, everyone had more than a few drinks that night and Avril was upset earlier. Karen recalled finding her crying in the restroom after Simons Senior’s speech. It could have been lots of things, they decided. They weren’t even sure whom they saw with Avril. But later, after they sobered up and were heading home, they saw Carter Simons Junior driving away in Avril’s car. Alone.

When Avril didn’t come to work the next day, or the next, or any days after that, they knew. They were all sure they witnessed her murder and failed to report it.

Carter Simons Junior approached each of them individually over the next couple of days. His threats were subtle. They saw nothing, or were mistaken, he said, or it would come back on them. They were accessories, now, and he would make sure they went down with him for it. They would never see their families again. He would make sure their names were permanently tainted. They would be unemployable. They would lose everything and everyone dear to them.

None of it could bring Avril Sosa back.

Lorena, Jim, and Karen could not live with their guilt and they gradually lost their affection for the company where they previously loved working. Jim took a lesser-paying job, Karen switched careers, and Lorena initially went on unemployment rather than continue working there. They kept in touch though, despite Junior's warnings. It was there, months later, that they started to discuss whether they should do something about Avril’s murder. They knew Avril was still considered a missing person. They wanted to give her family some peace by telling them where her body was, if nothing more. They figured she had to be buried on Simonstech land. Jim argued the evidence might tell the police who the killer was, but Karen thought it was too long ago, and any DNA would be compromised. Maybe they wouldn't be prosecuted like Junior had threatened.

Lorena didn’t know what to do, so she made the video, just in case, insisting Karen gave her a copy of the cell phone video to include. They all agreed they should give Carter Simons Junior the opportunity to turn himself in. Perhaps, they thought, with the three of them as witnesses, he would do the right thing by Avril's family. Perhaps he was wrong that they would all be charged as accessories. Eventually, the truth had to emerge.

Lorena looked forlornly at the camera as it cut out, making way for the cell phone footage which we watched silently.

And now that we had the truth, we had to make the decision of what to do next. There were two choices: turn the evidence over or bury it, like Avril got buried for the past two years. I knew what my conscience wanted and what the right choice was.

“We need to turn this in,” I said, looking at Marnie, but the statement was really more for Solomon.

“What if my mother gets implicated?” she asked.

“She’s already dead,” I said as softly as I could. “Nothing can hurt her now. You asked us here so you wouldn’t have to make the choice.”

“Plus, the circumstances of her death along with this DVD are enough to clear her of any wrongdoing,” Solomon added. He reached over and popped the DVD out of the laptop, tucking it into its plastic sleeve, and then inside his jacket. He turned to look at Marnie. “Do not tell anyone you saw this. Do not contact anyone mentioned on this video. Are we clear?”

Marnie nodded. “Clear. He killed my mom, didn’t he?” Marnie said, looking at me. "And he killed Avril too."

“I’m sorry, I think so.”

Marnie closed her eyes and rested her head on the pillow. I wondered how great a toll this would be on her.

“I’ll speak to the uniforms on your door and make sure no one comes in except your uncle. You’re not to discuss this with any of them either,” Solomon continued.

She opened her eyes. “Just… catch that guy, okay? I hope he rots in hell for this.”

“What do you think?” I asked Solomon as we exited the hospital.

“I think multiple counts of murder one look pretty good.”

“And Lorena? Do you really believe her name will be cleared?”

“I think the so-called evidence hanging over her head, as well as Jim’s and Karen’s, was shaky. Fear was the main motivator for them not to say anything. They couldn’t know if what Simons said wasn’t true. They would never have been charged as accomplices or accessories.”

“So they could have just come clean when Avril was killed?” That was depressing. They spent their last two years living in fear. Avril’s family never found closure. Ultimately, Jim, Karen and Lorena paid for their silence with their lives.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you ever want to go into a happier business?” I asked a few minutes later as we hit the road, heading towards the Montgomery police station. I felt tired suddenly, like I could sleep for weeks and never get enough rest.

“Like what?”

“Floristry? Balloon animals? Cake pops?”

Solomon smiled and shook his head. “Cake pops don’t give closure to families that need it.”

“Taste good though.”

“You want to go into cake pops, whatever the hell they are? Investigating isn’t for everyone.”

“I didn’t say that. Are you suggesting that?” I asked, studying him. “You pulled me off a case.”

“And if you would check your messages, you would hear me saying that the surveillance footage you pulled from the gym was good. We cleaned up the images and we have one that bears enough likeness to Simons Junior to convince a jury to believe it is he who gained access to poison Jim. Maybe Karen too.”

I brightened. “So I’m back on the case?”

“I don’t think you were ever off it, no matter what I said. What I will ask is are you at some kind of crossroads here? This isn’t a job where you see people happy and at their finest. We deal with people who are sad, miserable, at the end of their ropes as to what they can do for themselves. It can be depressing, but also great. Can you continue to do this day in, day out?”

I didn’t need to think about it. “Yes!”

“Then let’s try and give some families a sense of closure. Let’s help them lay their loved ones to rest. And after…”

“After?”

“After this is all over, we'll go to dinner and I’ll make sure there’s cake. Deal?”

“I can go one better,” I told him. “I know a place where the food will be great and the dessert is wedding cake. Will you be my date to Lily and Jord’s wedding?”