The Wedding Guest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I said, “Should we concentrate on the bride’s side?”

  “I’m not saying that—actually, I guess I am. Simply on a probability basis. Nearly everyone here is from her side.”

  “What’s the breakdown?”

  “Our side is basically us and a few of Gar’s college buddies.” She looked at Stuart.

  He said, “If there are a hundred people here, my off-the-cuff would be eighty-five to them, fifteen to us.”

  I said, “We noticed there were plenty of bridesmaids but no ushers.”

  Marilee Mastro said, “Another official policy, she thought it would take up too much time. Though to be fair, Garrett’s never been real social. Maybe she’ll draw him out.”

  “If opposites attract,” said Stuart, “these two sure have a chance to prove it.”

  Marilee said, “Given how few of us are here and the fact that your victim’s a young woman, wouldn’t you say she’s more likely to tie in with Brears? Not that I’m pointing fingers.”

  “At this point, Dr. Mastro, any information is welcome.”

  “I wish I could give you more, Lieutenant. It really is a horrible thing. Brears was so into it.”

  Stuart shook his head. “One day in their lives, it’s the rest that count. If there’s nothing else, Officers, can we find out how our little savages are doing?”

  * * *

  —

  The table was down to Leanza Cardell still playing with her hair and studious Amanda Burdette, who’d produced a yellow felt-tipped marker and was underlining. As Milo got up to head there, he was distracted by something to his left.

  CSI Peggy Cho, still suited and gloved, caught his attention with an upright index finger. We went over and she said, “A couple of things came up, probably better to talk up there.”

  We followed her out of the big room and up the stairs.

  When she got to the landing, she said, “First off, the prints. It’s a mess, there are tons of latents, which isn’t surprising considering it’s a john. Don’t imagine you have a list of candidates for comparison-elimination.”

  “If I need one,” said Milo, “I’ll recontact everyone who used those upstairs rooms. What I’m hoping is you’ll find something that links to AFIS and we go after a nice convenient criminal.”

  “Wouldn’t that be great,” said Cho. “I’ll do my best to lift everything but there’s all sorts of overlays and smudges. Top of that, the analysis will be crazy. Lab’s going to love you, Lieutenant. Even with scanning, it’s going to take time. Now the main thing. I found what looks like a needle puncture on her.”

  “C.I.’s didn’t say anything about that.”

  Cho shrugged. “Everyone misses stuff. Once I found it I looked for others. There aren’t any on the rest of her unclothed skin, and this doesn’t look self-administered. Unless you’ve heard of people shooting up back here.”

  Hooking her arm back, she pressed a spot at the base of her own skull.

  Milo said, “Needle in the head?”

  “Right where the spine enters the foramen magnum—that’s a little passageway back here. I found it by accident, shifting her around so I could get prints from the walls of the cubicle. I was holding on to her shoulders trying to ease her down but my hand slipped and I reached out, got hold of her neck, and felt a bump. She’s got thick hair, you wouldn’t see it unless you parted the strands. Once they do a full autopsy at the crypt and shave her, it will be obvious. I just thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

  “Definitely, appreciate it, Peggy.”

  I said, “A bump could mean a fresh puncture. Incapacitated before she was strangled.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Cho. “Because you know how long it takes to choke someone out, and especially with a wire cutting through flesh you’d expect to see signs of a struggle—lacerations on her hands as she fought to get loose. But there are none. I didn’t even pick up any dirt under her nails, let alone skin.”

  Milo said, “Needle in the back of the neck. You ever seen that before, Peggy?”

  “First time for everything.”

  He cracked a couple of bulky knuckles. “Killer dopes her, then takes time strangling her…show me.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  Two burly morgue drivers waited in the hallway facing the bathroom. One played with his phone, the other raised his eyebrows. “We good to go?”

  Milo said, “Not yet,” and followed Peggy Cho into the cramped fetid space. The body was prone on the floor.

  Cho said, “Let me turn her.”

  “Want help?”

  “No, I’m fine.” She rotated the head gently, deftly parted the woman’s dark mane, and revealed a bright-red dot on the nape of a long, graceful neck.

  If the injection had pierced the spinal cord, the result would’ve been blindingly painful. A high-voltage shock.

  I said, “No struggle says whatever she was injected with put her out quickly.”

  Cho said, “Maybe a fast-acting paralytic.”

  “Or a fast-acting opioid. Fentanyl comes to mind.”

  “You know, that makes sense,” said Cho. “A proper dosage for pain can take only minutes, right? Squeeze in more and we could be talking seconds.”

  I said, “Margin of error’s not that great. It could also be fatal.”

  “Oh, yeah, we’re seeing tons of O.D.’s.”

  Milo said, “This shot probably wasn’t fatal, at least not immediately.” He pointed. “Look at all the blood around the ligature wound.”

  Cho said, “You’re probably right and I don’t want to be annoying, but that could be postmortem seepage. The things I’ve seen on the job, anything’s possible.”

  Milo thanked her and we headed for the stairs.

  The driver with the aerial eyebrows said, “We good now?”

  * * *

  —

  Back on the ground floor, Milo said, “Fentanyl or something like it. The shit’s all over the place, the Chinese are churning it out sending it to Mexico and the cartels are competing with Big Pharma. But there are still legit uses. Rick’s aunt was on patches for chronic pain when she was dying. Wonder if Doctors Stu and Marilee find it useful in family practice.” He blinked. “Wonder if there are veterinary applications.”

  I palmed my phone, ran a search. “There are, same as for people. Chronic, intractable pain, surgical paralysis when appropriate.”

  “So I keep the Burdettes on the table. Okay, let’s do the little sister and Ms. Leanza. After we see how Sean’s doing with the staff.”

  * * *

  —

  Binchy was holding the attention of a table of people. Doing a little dance-step, gesticulating with both hands, adopting an air-guitar stance, keeping up a smiling patter.

  When he saw us, he stopped abruptly. But I’d caught the tail end of his lecture.

  “For my money, Rancid still rates as classic.”

  Mining the riches of his ska-punk former life.

  Milo drew him aside. “Anything iffy from any of them?”

  “No tells that I picked up, Loot. Just the opposite, they’re coming across salt-of-the-earth.”

  “Music fans.”

  Binchy colored around his freckles. “That, too, but that’s not why I’m saying—”

  Milo slapped his back. “Rock on, kid, just giving you a hard time. Got all their DMV data?”

  “You bet.” He showed Milo a piece of paper, neatly hand-printed. “Surprisingly, every license is current but I haven’t had time to run any of them through—”

  “We’ll do that later, Sean. Now I’m gonna meet your campers and go over what you did. No one blurts out a spontaneous, heartfelt confession, they’re free to go. Meanwhile, you go out back and collect all the auto data from the uniforms. Nothing iffy, you c
an head back to the office, leave all the info on my desk, and go home.”

  “You’re sure, Loot?”

  “Couldn’t be surer, you deserve some free time,” said Milo.

  “I’m really okay, Loot.”

  “Go, Detective. Hearth, home, wife, adorable offspring—oh, yeah, pull out the Fender bass, do a Rancid ditty, show it on YouTube—just kidding, Sean.”

  * * *

  —

  The servers, bartenders, and janitors were Hispanic, except for the cocktail waitresses who were blond women around the same age as the bride. The deejay, a gaunt man in his twenties named Des Silver, wore a black velvet suit and a green porkpie hat. The photographer, a pudgy, patchily bearded young man in his twenties named Bradley Tomashev, wore an ill-fitting gray suit over a white T-shirt and cradled a Nikon.

  No one unnecessarily avoiding eye contact or playing ocular pinball, no shaking legs, clenching and unclenching of fists, profuse sweating, tics, or other displays of undue anxiety.

  That was just a spot evaluation and far from foolproof because psychopaths are better than most at staying calm under pressure and the more psychopathic, the colder their nervous systems. But you can’t hold on to people without evidence and with the crime feeling personal, the chance of a woman dolling up to attend a party where her significant other was on the job seemed remote.

  Milo let everyone go, except the photographer.

  * * *

  —

  Bradley Tomashev said, “If Brears is okay with it, yeah I can send you the file once I put it together. It’s going to take time, though. There’s tons of images.”

  Milo said, “What we’re most interested in are crowd shots. Coming, going, and during.”

  “Oh,” said Tomashev. “There are some but not a lot, Brears didn’t want that.”

  “What did she want?”

  Tomashev shifted in his chair. “Brears is my friend and she’s the bride.”

  “Same question, Bradley.”

  Tomashev sighed. “Don’t tell her I told you, okay? I don’t want to step in anything.”

  Milo crossed his heart.

  “What she wanted was basically herself. Along with a little of the normal stuff. Like the procession, the vows back at the church.”

  “But otherwise, her.”

  “She’s the bride, so whatever,” said Tomashev.

  I said, “Speaking of vows, was the clergyperson at the reception?”

  “Uh-uh, the church was like a rented thing, some old guy showed up and read the vows Brears wrote.” Tomashev scratched his chin. Curly, rusty hairs rustled. “She wanted what she wanted, I tried to give it to her. I’m not really a wedding photographer, sirs, this is basically my first.”

  “Did you get paid?”

  “No, sir. I was happy to do it.”

  Milo said, “Well, even a few crowd shots would help.”

  “I’ll look for them, sir, but I didn’t go out for those. Even with the dancing, she was always the focal point.”

  “All about Brears.”

  “She’s the bride,” said Bradley Tomashev. “My job was trying to make sure I honored that.”

  He trundled off, still holding his camera like an infant.

  Milo said, “Unhealthy attachment to Ms. Rapfogel?”

  I said, “He does seem enamored but I don’t see that leading to murder. On the contrary, he’d want everything perfect for her.”

  He thought about that for a while. Hooked a thumb to the final table.

  Leanza Cardell remained seated, still engrossed with her hair and the remains of a four-ounce Martini.

  Amanda Burdette was up on her feet well before we arrived, hustling toward us swinging her book and her yellow marker. Rapid but stiff walk. The shapeless dress bagged on her.

  I got close enough to read the book’s title. Meta-Communication in the Post-Modern Society: A Comprehensive Ethologic Approach.

  Milo muttered, “Beach read.”

  She flipped the book. A diagonal sticker on the back said Thirsty. Waving the marker, she said, “I’ve got a test tomorrow, I go first.”

  Milo glanced at Leanza. She drank and twirled, impervious.

  “Sure.”

  We brought Amanda to the far right corner of the room and sat. Milo motioned her to an empty chair.

  She said, “I’ll stand. Been on my ass all day.”

  Small plain girl with dark eyes as animate as coffee beans and a husky, strangely flat voice that verged on electronically processed. She’d piled her ponytail into a careless top thatch. Errant brown hair frizzed like tungsten filament. No makeup, jewelry, nail polish.

  No eye contact.

  Milo pointed to the book. “The test is on that?”

  “No-oh. It’s on chemistry,” said Amanda Burdette. “Chem for dummies but still.”

  “A challenge.”

  “Staying awake is a challenge because it’s boring as fuck. Is any of this relevant? I don’t see it fitting the narrative.”

  “What narrative is that?”

  “Death at a wedding. I’m assuming unnatural death. Everyone is because of all the time you’re taking doing your police thing.”

  Milo smiled.

  Amanda Burdette said, “I didn’t realize I was being humorous.”

  He showed her the picture of the dead girl.

  She said, “That’s her.”

  “You know her?”

  “Nope, just acknowledging it’s her. Being phenomenological. As in you already showed me the same picture and I assume she hasn’t morphed or otherwise altered her molecular status.”

  Milo looked at me.

  I said, “You assume right. Any suggestions?”

  “About?”

  “The murder.”

  “Murder is bad,” she said. “Unless it’s justified. Like killing a Nazi. Or a molester.”

  “You’re a communications major?”

  “No.”

  I waited.

  So did she.

  I said, “What is your major?”

  “I curate my own major.”

  “Really.”

  “Really,” she mimicked. “As if you care.”

  Milo said, “Have we offended you, Ms. Burdette?”

  “Your role offends me. The need for your services offends me.”

  “Crime—”

  “Your presence means the world doesn’t have its act together. By now, we should be more than rampaging baboons.”

  “You see the police—”

  “Must we have a symposium?” said Amanda Burdette. “I see you as a prime symptom of a barbaric society. And yes, every society has needed people like you. Which is precisely my point: So-called humankind hasn’t evolved.”

  I said, “The major you put together—”

  “Cultural anthropology slash economic history slash—yes, communications, congratulations for being one-third correct.”

  “I went to the U., don’t recall—”

  “Obviously times have changed,” said Amanda Burdette. “The powers that be deigned to allow me to construct a personal but informed narrative contingent on taking a certain amount of so-called science courses. Ergo chemistry for the mentally challenged, which ergo I need to pass. Which ergo requires staying awake and memorizing molecular structure so if you don’t mind—”

  I said, “Did you notice anything unusual during the wedding?”

  “I noticed everything unusual. The phenomenon is by definition unusual. Two people wearing clown costumes and pretending they’ll be able to avoid fucking other people for fifty years.”

  I said, “How about something specific to this wedding?”

  “For starts she’s retarded.”

  “Brears.”

  “Brears
Brearely Brearissimo.” She let out a metallic single-note laugh. “That sounds like a dog’s name. Yes, Brearely is barely literate.” Barest upturn of lips. “The image in my head is a pampered lapdog that gets its ass wiped by willing sycophants.”

  Milo said, “You don’t like your new sister-in-law.”

  Amanda Burdette looked him up and down. Twenty years old but well schooled in the withering glance.

  “It’s not a matter of like. She’s not worth thinking about.”

  “Your brother—”

  “Gar’s always been gullible.”

  “About?”

  “Life. He’s always blinded by something. At this moment it’s alleged love.”

  “Alleged.”

  “I’m talking your language as a semantic shortcut,” said Amanda Burdette. “Alleged perpetrator until proven otherwise?”

  She undid the thatch, drew her hair forward, and played with it. “If it doesn’t last, he’ll be shattered, and she won’t feel a thing because she’ll have already fucked a bunch of other guys and planned her exit strategy. Will he learn? Probably not. Though life will eventually go on for him, too. And in answer to your probable next question, I can see someone hating her and wanting to fuck up her wedding. Could that entail killing this person?” Tapping the photo. “Why not? Depends on the narrative.”

  Milo said, “Whose narrative are we talking about now?”

  “Obviously the alleged killer’s.”

  “What exactly do you mean by narrative?”

  Another dehydrating once-over. “I’ll keep it simple. Every reality is tempered by innumerable bio-psycho-social constructs, contaminants, and other intervening variables. Everyone tells innumerable stories throughout their lives to themselves and others as well as to the greater external environment.”

  She engaged Milo’s eyes with her own, smallish orbs. “And that means, Mr. Policeman, that your job will always be a giant pain in the ass for you because you will never spend your days dealing with honesty, nor will you ever reach the point where you feel you’ve accomplished anything. Because you haven’t. Because people suck.”