The Wedding Guest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I said, “A few kids are withdrawing but not many. From what we saw, Amanda might have a stake in being different. Or relationships are problematic for her so she’s withdrawn.”

  “Relationships with other women?”

  “Her family’s straitlaced. If her sexuality wouldn’t fit in, she’d definitely want to keep it from them. That could be another reason she was so hostile.”

  “Amanda and Red Dress,” he said. “Red Dress shows up to the wedding peeved because her girlfriend didn’t invite her. Amanda needs to get her out of view, takes her upstairs to talk—she was a bridesmaid, she’d know about the bathroom. There’s a confrontation and Red Dress gets the worst of it. Yeah, it’s a great screenplay. Unfortunately logic doesn’t touch it. If Amanda was caught off-guard, why would she be equipped with a syringe full of dope and a guitar string? Plus, she’s small, hard to see her overpowering anyone. And she didn’t have any scratches on her, any indication she’d been in a struggle.”

  I said, “Want me to play Devil’s advocate?”

  “What, you need permission? No, I don’t. Yes, I do. Go.”

  “There was no struggle because the shot in the back of Red Dress’s neck shocked her to the ground. Amanda had dope because she uses. Not necessarily a full-fledged junkie. She flirts with opioids—a little squirt here and there, lots of kids try it. That could explain her affect.”

  No answer.

  I said, “You don’t like it.”

  “I’m not feeling it, Alex. Yeah, she could be involved on some level. But managing to get away from the wedding party long enough to do all that, come back looking none the worse, and go back to her book? Now onward to the bride’s family. Lots of litigation, there. The Rapfogels rent space in an office building, are tussling with their landlord—unpaid rent versus code violations. Even more interesting, five former employees are suing separately for back wages and ‘workplace violations.’ ”

  “Sexual harassment.”

  “Bingo. All five claimants are female, I managed to contact two. Neither was thrilled to talk to me and both said Red Dress’s description didn’t ring a bell. But one woman made it clear Denny Rapfogel was a pig. Took a while to pry it out of her, finally she said, ‘You know. What’s going around?’ I say, ‘Sounds like a disease.’ She says, ‘Exactly. The scrotal flu.’ Then she hung up. Plenty of hostility potential, no? As in pissed-off husband or boyfriend. If Denny was the target, there’d be irony potential, too. You abused your wedding vows, asshole, now your little Baby won’t enjoy hers.”

  I said, “That would fit getting rid of Denny. Killing an innocent woman doesn’t. Red Dress wasn’t an accidental victim. But now you’ve got me thinking. What if Amanda wasn’t her lover, Denny was. Married guy dangles a woman on the side, promises to leave his wife but never does. Her frustration boils over, she shows up looking sexy and ready to humiliate him. Same scenario, different cast.”

  “He’s big enough to pull it off but we’ve still got the problem of preparation. Who brings a syringe and guitar string to his daughter’s wedding?”

  “Someone who suspected what might happen,” I said.

  More silence.

  Finally, he said, “No, I don’t don’t like it. Maybe, let’s see what happens when I get more face-time with Denny…okay, last item: talked to Tomashev, the photographer. Still working on the images.”

  “Speaking of which, how come there was no videographer?”

  “There was supposed to be. A studio gofer Tomashev works with. It fell through because she insisted on a deposit but never got one.”

  “Tight budget,” I said. “That and the Rapfogels’ unpaid rent says tough times. Another source of stress if Red Dress was tightening screws.”

  “Red Fendi,” he said. “Alicia’s checking to see if it’s vintage. It is, she’ll do a boutique crawl. And yes, I’m assuming a woman will do better at high-end dress shops, don’t report me to the ACLU. Any suggestions beyond re-interviewing Amanda and the Rapfogels?”

  “Maybe a follow-up with the bride and groom, because they could still be the primary targets. And pursue the strip-club angle. She worked The Aura, she likely had other gigs.”

  “Already assigned it to Moe.”

  “Time on for good behavior?”

  He cracked up. “No address on Amanda so the Rapfogels come first. Think they’re ready for my charm and charisma?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Even so,” he said, “how about we toss in your therapeutic warmth, notable empathy, and all-around sensitivity?”

  “Sure. When?”

  “Now sounds about right. By the time you get here, I’ll have a plan.”

  * * *

  —

  He was standing ten yards south of the station when I drove up. I cruised to the curb and he got in.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Improv. No one answered at their agency but it’s ten minutes away, Wilshire near Barrington. I strike out, we had a nice breather.”

  As I shifted into Drive, the front door to the station opened and Alicia Bogomil came out wearing baggy gray sweats and white sneakers. In contrast, her long, butterscotch hair was combed out and glowing and she’d put on makeup and dangling earrings that flashed as she walked. Sashayed.

  She saw us, immediately adjusted her gait to cop-march, and came over to the Seville.

  “Hi, Doc. Off to explore the world of fashion, Loo. I figured I’d go home and dress up a bit.” She plucked at the sweatshirt. White lettering exalted The Albuquerque Isotopes.

  Milo said, “That a team or a chemistry lesson?”

  “Minor-league baseball.” Another pluck. “I Lysoled the locker they gave me five times but it still stinks of whoever, and now so does this. I’m figuring decent duds and a little perfume might not get me kicked out.”

  Milo said, “Hauting the couture? Go for it.”

  “Great,” she said. “Nice seeing you, Doc. Think I’d look half decent in Fendi?”

  Not waiting for a reply, she crossed to the staff parking lot. Back to loose limbs, hair swaying back and forth, in counterpoint to her rear end.

  Milo said, “Good work ethic. She’s doing okay, so far.”

  He read off the Rapfogels’ business address.

  I did a three-pointer using the staff parking lot and drove north.

  He said, “I was gonna call the Burdettes and ask for Amanda’s address, then I said maybe not. Overprotected youngest child, maybe with personality issues? Don’t want her parents on edge this early. Make sense?”

  “Perfect sense,” I said. “And we could get the address from the U.”

  “You heard what the unicop said. They don’t give out personal info.”

  “I’m thinking Maxine Driver.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Think she’d do it?”

  “If the incentive was there.”

  Driver was a history professor at the U., an elegant, erudite daughter of Korean immigrants with a special affection for freedom. Her academic interest was criminal life in prewar L.A. Last year, she’d provided information that had helped close the murder of a one-hundred-year-old woman. Her payback was access to a fat blue file that nourished four academic papers and a keynote presentation at an international criminology conference in Bonn.

  I switched my cell to hands-off and called her campus extension.

  She said, “Alex. Another juicy one?”

  “Juicy but not historical.”

  I gave her the basics.

  She hummed a few bars of “The Wedding March” and said, “Here comes the victim? Crazy—sure, why not, if you give me another murder book. Maybe I’ll explore a new topic: the relationship between tribal rites of passage and violence.”

  “If Lieutenant Sturgis solves it, I’m sure that could be worked out.”

 
“You’re working with him again?” she said. “I like him. More sensitive than he lets on and overwhelmingly authentic.”

  “That he is.”

  Milo gave an aw-shucks pout.

  Maxine Driver said, “So what exactly can I help you with?”

  “The class schedule of a specific student.”

  “That’s it?”

  “So far.”

  “There’ll be more?”

  “Depends.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Divulging personal data is a big no-no, Alex. Privacy for the tots and all that.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  She laughed. “Like I care? Name.”

  “Amanda Burdette. She’s a sophomore, made her own major.”

  “Ah, one of those bullshit DIYs,” she said. “Amanda Burdette…is she by any chance a rude little pretentious kind of spectrumy pain in the ass?”

  I said, “That could describe her.”

  “Pale? Like one of those Victorian chicks who ate chalk? Arrogant mien utterly unjustified by reality?”

  “Amazing, Maxine.”

  “What is?”

  “Forty-three thousand students and you know the one we’re looking at.”

  “I know her because I had her in one of my upper-division seminars. Twice-a-month spiel on social structure, the department stuck me with it. A dozen kids and she was conspicuous because of her attitude. She’d come in late, flounce to the back, and make a big show of ignoring me—head in a book that had nothing to do with the class. Always some dreary existential thing, Sartre and the like. If we made eye contact, she’d smirk and pull the book higher.”

  “Making a statement.”

  “Making a screw-you statement,” she said. “I was so looking forward to flunking her but she had the gall to hand in a terrific finals bluebook, so what could I do? Little bitch can write and abstract. I could’ve downgraded her to B plus and gotten away with it, but who needs the headache? She got an A minus. So what’d she do to get Milo interested?”

  “Maybe nothing, Maxine, and you know the drill.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the old cloak-and-dagger. Fine, last time it worked out great. I’ll call my secret contact at a secret place to remain unnamed—nephew at the registrar’s office, oops. Anything else?”

  “A home address would be helpful.”

  “The police can’t dig that up?”

  “She’s got no driver’s license or social network presence.”

  “One of those,” she said. “I call them burrowers. Little fanged shrews who bury themselves underground and emerge periodically to wax obnoxious. A lot of them seem to live with Mommy and Daddy and eschew motor vehicles.”

  “Her mommy and daddy are in Calabasas. I was figuring an address near campus, a bike and/or Uber.”

  “Makes sense, let me see what I can find.”

  “Thanks, Maxine.”

  “You can’t tell me anything?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, well,” she said. “I’ll have to sustain myself with fantasy. As in Milo ends up busting the little twit for something horrendous, she goes on trial, I’m in the courtroom the day she’s sentenced, positioned where she has to look at me. She hears the bad news, we make eye contact, I hold up a Camille Paglia.”

  Academic’s notion of revenge.

  “A wedding,” she said. “Obviously she’s not the bride and I can’t see her as a chirping bridesmaid.”

  I looked at Milo. He nodded.

  “She’s the groom’s sister.”

  “The plot thickens,” said Driver. “Okay, nice hearing from you, Alex. Tribal rituals gone bloody—weddings, bar mitzvahs—hey, circumcisions, my husband would love that.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  VCR Staffing Specialists occupied a ground-floor office in a squat two-story brick building. High-rises and strip malls abounded in East Brentwood. This building had been forgotten by time and developers. But maybe not for long: A For Sale sign was nailed to the brick, just right of a pebble-glass door.

  A lobby floored in grimy fake terrazzo opened to a brown-carpeted hallway. VCR’s suite was toward the back. Dead bolt below the doorknob but the knob turned.

  Inside was an empty waiting room decorated with prints of Paris street scenes from the nineteenth century and the type of black-and-white celebrity photos you see in dry cleaners and other places celebrities never go.

  Small desk, one chair. Hard gray tweed sofas said no one of import waited here.

  Another wooden door centered the wall behind the desk. Voices filtered through. Muffled but not enough to conceal emotional tone.

  Male voice, female voice, talking over each other.

  Milo rapped hard and the conversation stopped.

  The male voice said, “You hear something?”

  The female voice shouted, “If you’re so damn curious, go check.”

  Denny Rapfogel, flushed and sweaty and rolling a black plastic pen between his fingers, opened the door. He blurted, “What the?” then checked himself and offered a queasy smile.

  His too-tight, green aloha shirt was patterned with Martini glasses and cocktail shakers. Off-white linen pants bagged to the floor, puddling over olive-green basket-weave loafers.

  From behind him came a bark worthy of a watchdog: “Who?”

  “The cops from the wedding.”

  “Why?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  Corinne Rapfogel came into view, jostling past her husband. The impact jellied his jowls. The skin where his jaw met his earlobes reddened and his shoulders rose. Still, the seasick smile endured.

  Corinne’s smile was huge and white. “Oh, hi, guys.” New voice, soft and kittenish.

  Alicia Bogomil’s plan was to doll up to get the job done. Corinne Rapfogel had dolled down for her work space, even accounting for wedding versus everyday.

  She wore a blousy light-blue dress that hung past her knees, chipped white patent flats on her feet. Dark hair was tied back carelessly, with errant strands shooting out from the sides of her head, more than a few gray filaments glinting. Reading glasses perched atop a shiny nose. Like a lot of faces accustomed to heavy makeup, hers looked unformed and blurred without it.

  Despite all that, she began vamping, working stubby eyelashes, cocking her head to one side, her hip to the other.

  Milo said, “Ms. Rapfogel.”

  “Pu-leeze, we’re old friends by now, right? Corinne.” Taking hold of Milo’s hand and holding on for too long.

  Denny Rapfogel said, “They’re not here to socialize, this is business.” To us: “Hopefully good business—you solved it?”

  Milo freed his hand. “I wish, sir. We’re here for a follow-up, tried calling but no one answered so we thought we’d—”

  Corinne Rapfogel said, “What can we follow you up on, guys?”

  Milo said, “First off, has anything new occurred to you?”

  “Occurred,” she said, as if learning a foreign word on a self-teaching tape. Long, sweeping leftward movement of her eyes. “No, can’t say that it has.”

  Denny said, “You’re saying no progress at all? More I’ve been thinking about it, more pissed I get. They ruined our day.”

  Milo said, “The dead woman’s day didn’t go too well, either.”

  “The woman,” said Denny. “You’re not going to tell me you don’t know who she is.”

  “Unfortunately—”

  “Christ. What’s the problem? With social media, who can’t be identified?”

  Corinne said, “Obviously some people can’t.”

  Using the tone you employ for spelling simple things out to dullards. Denny knew it and glared. Corinne didn’t notice, or chose not to. Her eyes made another sweep to the left. The fingers on her outthrust hip
drummed.

  She saw me looking. Smiled and nodded, as if we were sharing a secret.

  I raised my eyebrows. She did the same.

  Shall we dance?

  Milo watched without expression. Denny Rapfogel, turning away from his wife, saw none of it. He shook his head. “Total disaster. That’s what you came to tell us? Jesus H.”

  Corinne said, “It’s follow-up.”

  “Whatever.”

  “They’re doing their best. These are honest working guys.”

  Her turn to glare. The unspoken as opposed to.

  The flush spread to Denny’s cheeks. “It wasn’t my dad who was an insurance dentist—”

  “An honest, hardworking DDS,” said Corinne. “You never knew him so don’t be judging.”

  “Right.” To us: “Her old man’s face used to be on bus benches.”

  Corinne produced a rictal smile. “My dad grew up in the projects and earned his dental surgery degree from New York University. Some people take the initiative.”

  Denny muttered, “Bus benches.”

  Milo said, “So. Any new ideas?”

  “Like what?” said Denny.

  “Like whatever could help them, obviously,” said Corinne. Another glance at me, followed by a conspiratorial nod.

  I said, “Mr. Rapfogel, your comment about a ruined day is right on. I know you were asked this at the time but can you think of anyone who’d want to screw up the wedding?”

  “From our side?” said Denny. “No freakin’ way. Our side was mostly Brears’s friends and obviously friends don’t want to ruin anything.”

  Corinne said nothing.

  I said, “Mrs. Rapfogel?”

  She shook her head and said, “I can’t think of anyone,” but the fingers on her hip had stilled and the index finger had extended. Keeping the gesture low and out of her husband’s view, she curled the digit.

  Come hither.

  I returned her tiny nod.

  She smiled.

  Denny Rapfogel said, “Look, it’s a bad time. The building just went up for sale and we need to do some contingency planning, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Milo. “Sorry for disturbing you, sir.”

  “If you ever actually solve it,” said Denny, “any disturbance will be worth it. You find out who it is, I’ll sue their ass.”