Wedding Day of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  In the end, nothing was accomplished. Those who were unhappy with the changes aired their complaints. Those who were happy listed the town’s accomplishments—growth, jobs, landscaping, and a small real estate boom. In Lacy’s very biased opinion, her group’s statistics were more concrete than the disgruntled group’s complaint of “bad apples invading the town.”

  After almost two hours of hearing from both sides, Lacy stood to speak again. “You make it seem as if I want the protesters here, as if I’m happy they’ve come, but I’m not. I wish they would go away and never come back. But so far they haven’t violated any laws. Unless or until they do, they have the right to stand outside my building and say whatever they want. If we make a big deal over them, then they’ll dig in their heels and stay. If we ignore them, they’ll go away.”

  “I said the same about you when you started this mess,” Mr. Argus said. He lived two blocks from the Stakely building and complained almost daily about the noise, traffic, and parking.

  Kimber sprang to her feet. “That’s uncalled for. Your property values have probably skyrocketed since Lacy came back.”

  “I suppose that depends on your definition of value,” Mr. Argus said. “I like my neighborhoods free of crime and traffic, and I don’t like having so many of you people around.”

  “You people?” Kimber said. “What’s that supposed to mean? People whose skin isn’t lily white like yours?”

  “You take that to mean whatever you want, little missy,” Mr. Argus said.

  “That’s enough.” A voice spoke from the back of the room and Travis stepped forward. He was in uniform and likely on his way to work. He was a deputy at the jail and not a patrol unit. Most people probably didn’t understand the distinction. A uniform was enough to cause a ripple through the room. All eyes were on him as he parted the crowd and came to stand beside Lacy and Kimber. “It seems to me that this meeting has gone on long enough and everyone has said what they need to say. Does anyone have anything else to add before we adjourn?”

  Everyone remained silent. The mayor reluctantly got to his feet. “I guess that’s it until next time, folks. Good evening and drive safe.” He turned to whisper and gesture to Detective Arroyo who gave a helpless shake of his head. Lacy hoped Travis wouldn’t get in trouble at work for leaping to her defense. Though, in reality, he had probably been leaping to Kimber’s defense. The two had been friends ever since their accidental make-out session a few months ago. Kimber was embarrassed about the whole thing, but Lacy had sensed a new maturity in Travis. It was as if the evening with Kimber, combined with his heartbreak over Riley, gave him the confidence he needed to step out of his shell a little. Tonight had been a prime example of the new confidence; he was only twenty, and yet he had stepped forward and broken up what could have been a very ugly encounter.

  After the meeting broke up, Lacy had gone home. Her mother was at Tosh and Riley’s, allowing Lacy to go straight to bed with no drama. But no matter how hard she tried to rest, sleep remained elusive. “I might as well get up and work,” she whispered to no one in particular. The crazy day had been a waste, and stacks of tax forms awaited her signature.

  For the third time in twenty-four hours, she showered and spent awhile picking little globs of paint from her hair. After Jason’s careful attention, there were only a few stragglers left. Lacy was confident they would work themselves out in time for Riley’s wedding.

  She sneaked to the kitchen and left a note for her grandparents and mother. Her grandmother was having outpatient surgery that day, too. Lacy fleetingly thought it was strange that Frannie was going shopping on the day her mother and daughter were both having surgery, but her mother had never been good with illness. Anytime Lacy got sick as a child, her grandmother had been called in as chief caregiver. As a kid, that had seemed normal to Lacy. Now she wasn’t so sure. Her mother had been a stay-at-home mom, and yet anytime one of her children got more than the sniffles, they had been shipped to Grandma for the duration. Frannie Steele was a study in contrasts. Sometimes she was nurturing and supportive—a perfect reflection of her adopted mother, Lucinda. At other times, she was critical and self-absorbed—a replica of her biological mother, Barbara Blake. Was she self-aware enough to wonder over the dichotomy? Lacy wondered and felt sympathy for her mother. The constant battle between nature and nurture must be confusing.

  “Hi.”

  Lacy whirled and banged her knee on a cupboard. “Mom, what are you doing up?”

  “Couldn’t sleep. There’s so much to do for this wedding, and it seems like I’m the only one who cares,” Frannie said. She rubbed her hands over her arms, causing Lacy to notice that the house was chilly.

  “I’m sure the wedding will be fine, Mom,” Lacy said. She refrained from reminding her mother that it was a moot ceremony since Riley and Tosh were already married. Frannie’s ways were not her ways. Lacy had learned long ago that it was better to keep her head down and go along than to waste precious energy arguing over the unchangeable.

  “What are you doing up?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, either. I think I’m going to go to work.”

  “Why? Will you be able to sleep there?” Fran asked.

  “No, I have work to do,” Lacy said.

  “I don’t understand that. You own a building. What work could there possibly be?”

  “A lot, actually,” Lacy said. Every day it was something new—renter disputes, neighbor complaints, regulations, taxes, an unending stream of bureaucracy. She didn’t elaborate, both because her mother wouldn’t care about the minutia and because the topic was awkward. Frannie had never delved too deeply into Lacy’s inheritance. Lacy tried to keep it that way so her mother wouldn’t ask too many questions. She still had no idea that she was adopted, and for as long as Lacy’s grandparents wanted to keep the secret, she planned to play along.

  “Someday when you and Jason get married, he’s not going to like having a wife who works all day,” Frannie said.

  “Jason and I just started dating, Mom. We’re hardly ready for marriage. And if it ever reaches that point, then I doubt he would require me to stay home. He’s supportive.”

  Frannie smiled. “All men are supportive at first.”

  “Mom, what’s going on between you and Dad? You’ve hardly called him since you arrived.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Frannie said. She moved past Lacy and put the teakettle on the stove. Lacy wanted to delve deeper into the subject, but her mother was ready with a diversion. “You need to give Riley a bachelorette party.”

  “I need to throw a bachelorette party for a married, pregnant woman?” Lacy said.

  “She’s your only sister, and she’s getting married. Of course you need to throw her a party, and don’t think this counts as a baby shower because you need to give one of those, too.”

  “Fine, Mom, we’ll go out for milk and antacid before the wedding. It’ll be a blast.” Riley had been having severe morning sickness and acid reflux. Added to her exhaustion, she was in misery most of the time.

  Frannie turned to give her a look. “Be serious, Lacy. It needs to be classy, something befitting the wife of a millionaire.”

  Lacy bypassed the part where she reminded her mother that Tosh lived humbly on what he made as a pastor and went to the more important point. “Who would I invite? None of Riley’s friends live around here. It would be me, Riley, and Kimber.”

  “How about Tosh’s sisters?” Frannie suggested. “I don’t think they’re sold on Riley. This party could go a long way toward smoothing things over.”

  “I guess that might be fun,” Lacy said. She had met Tosh’s sisters a couple of times and liked them.

  “Plus I’ll be there, and Grandma.”

  “Basically you’re telling me that I have less than a week to plan a fun, elegant party that can accommodate Tosh’s wild and crazy sisters, my pregnant sister, my mom, and my super-conservative grandmother.”

  “Don’t forget Kimber and any of Riley’s fr
iends we can manage to find,” her mother said.

  Lacy was getting a headache, which served to remind her that she would be having dental surgery in less than four hours. “I really need to go,” Lacy said.

  “We should talk more about the party,” Frannie said.

  “Later,” Lacy said. “I’ll see you.” She slipped out of the house before Frannie could call her back. So far she had stayed out of her mother’s way, content that she had no part in the blitz of wedding plans. Somehow she had been given an integral role in the pre-wedding events. How did these things happen to her?

  She couldn’t worry about it now. After her surgery, she would throw something together. If Riley had some vested interest in the event, then she might feel compelled to put in more time or effort. But none of Riley’s friends were coming to the wedding—Lacy thought this was secretly because Riley didn’t want anyone to see her barely discernable pregnancy belly. Whatever the reason, if there was no one around Riley cared about impressing, then a low-key party wouldn’t be a big deal. Her mother would be disappointed in Lacy, but then she always was. The changes Lacy had gone through the last year were giving her new energy to deal with her mom. The more comfortable she became in her own skin, the less she needed her mother’s approval—a good thing since Frannie’s approval was so rarely given.

  And then there was Jason. It was hard to care about her mother’s criticisms when she had a beautiful, amazing man constantly by her side telling her otherwise. For every disparaging comment from her mother, Jason gave her two doses of tenderness and encouragement. And it wasn’t as if he was purposely trying to counterbalance Frannie. He was simply being the caring, supportive boyfriend she had come to expect. Not that he didn’t occasionally become exasperated or angry with her, but the frustration rested on the surface of a deep well of adoration. Lacy was becoming confident in the fact that Jason truly loved her, and that confidence made all the difference. And yet you couldn’t tell him you love him.

  “What is wrong with me?” she asked herself. The words felt harsh in the darkness. She looked around to make sure no one had heard them. One of the things she loved about living with her grandma was the ability to walk to work, but walking to work felt much better when it wasn’t four in the morning. Not until she arrived at the Stakely building did she remember the creepy protester who had stared at and followed her. Walking to work by herself in the middle of the night was probably not a good idea right now.

  Or ever, she heard the rejoinder in Jason’s voice. It was exactly what he would say after he got over the apoplectic seizure he would no doubt have if she told him what she’d done. You walked to work in the middle of the night…alone…after people picketed you all day and you were followed…and there was a contentious council meeting full of angry townspeople… He would also give her the look, the one where he tried and failed to figure out how her mind worked. Then he would hold her close and say, Woman, sometimes you make me crazy. She wondered if he was still at work. It would be like him to work all night and then take her to the doctor without a word about how exhausted he was.

  Lacy skulked as she came closer to her building, awkwardly squatting and darting from car to car. If the protesters were still there, they weren’t in plain view. She tripped, bashed her head on the side of a car, and toppled onto her hands and knees in the street. The car alarm started to blare. So much for being sneaky, she thought. She froze, waiting to be discovered by the protesters or the owner of the car. When no one came, she stood and dashed to the Stakely building, fumbling for the lock with shaky fingers.

  She had let herself into the darkened building before plenty of times. Why did this time make her so jittery? Once inside the building, she leaned on the door and listened. The only sound was the drumming of her heart. After a few deep breaths and some calming words, she began to relax. This was her building. Nothing was out of place. Everything was as it should be except that Joe was nowhere around. It wasn’t unusual to see him there at all hours. He had trouble sleeping and his favorite place to wander was the Stakely building. Lacy joked that she should pay him overtime for all his midnight ramblings. She wished for his company now as she nervously made her way to the third floor and her office.

  For what seemed like hours, she signed her name over, and over, and over again. Her accountant had flagged the papers for her with what appeared to be dozens of sticky notes. By the time she was finished, Lacy was about to slip into a coma, but it was too late to go home and sleep. Instead she turned her attention to a stack of trash. She had put off shredding it for too long. This was the sort of grunt work for which she needed a secretary. The problem was that there wasn’t enough fulltime work to necessitate a fulltime employee. What Lacy needed was a part-timer she could call whenever she became bogged down with the mundane tasks of office work. She owned the building. Was it the best use of her time to operate the shredder for two hours in the middle of the night?

  By the time she was finished with that task, she had accumulated four large bags of shredded paper and the sun was coming up. Lacy tied up the bags and hauled them downstairs. The dumpster was behind the building. She poked her head cautiously out the door. What if protesters were early risers? No one was around, but she still strode quickly and cautiously to the dumpster and heaved two of the bags onto the overflowing pile. One of the bags rolled off. She crouched and picked it up, but before she could toss it back on the pile, a flash of green canvas caught her eye.

  One of the protesters, the man who had followed her to the restaurant, was asleep on the dumpster. Lacy felt a wave of pity. Perhaps he was truly down on his luck and that was why he was so angry. Maybe he needed money. Either way, the dumpster wasn’t a good place to sleep, especially because today was pickup day. She stepped closer, intending to tap his shoulder, but when she stood on her toes and reached out, she saw that he was already staring at her. This time, however, his eyes were vacant. Lacy’s first thought was that he slept with his eyes open, but it only took a few seconds to register the truth: the man was dead.

  Chapter 5

  Jason felt like he had just closed his eyes when his phone rang. He knew by the tone that it was Lacy. He felt a moment of panic that he had overslept and was late to take her to the dentist.

  “Babe,” he answered, conciliatory in case he was in trouble. His room was dark, but that didn’t tell him much; he had put blackout curtains on the windows when he started working third shift and never bothered to take them off. He liked a dark room.

  “He’s dead.”

  He rolled out of bed, grabbing his pants as he sat up. “Who’s dead? Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”

  “The man, the one who followed me. He’s dead.”

  “Lacy, more info, please.” He slid into his jeans and zipped them with one hand, grabbing a shirt with the other. His phone was tucked against his shoulder. “Who followed you? Are you okay? More importantly, where are you?”

  “I’m at the dumpster behind the Stakely building.”

  By the time she finished speaking, he had grabbed his keys and sprinted to his work SUV. “Just a minute, I’m going to call this in.” He pressed the phone to his shoulder again, radioed his dispatch and had a couple of street units and an ambulance sent to her. “All right, stay on the phone with me while I drive. Are you alone now?”

  “The guy is here.”

  His heart plummeted. “What guy? Is here armed?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see into the dumpster.”

  He wanted to bang his head on the steering wheel. Communicating with Lacy was sometimes a test of his patience, especially when she was being incoherent. “Besides you and the dead guy in the dumpster, are you alone?”

  “I think so. I don’t see anyone around.”

  “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

  “How could he hurt me? He’s dead.”

  He gritted his teeth. Extracting information was probably harder than pulling her teeth would be. “Start at the begi
nning and tell me what happened.” He parked in front of the Stakely building and headed to the back. Lacy had her back to him. She spoke with grand hand gestures as if they were face to face, which they would be in a few seconds.

  “I was working. I came outside to throw some stuff away and saw him.”

  “Okay,” he said. She jumped and spun.

  “Oh, you’re here.”

  “I’m here.” He pushed his phone in his pocket and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, gulping. “It’s so sad for him, though. He looks young.”

  “I know. Stay here, all right? I want to see what we’re dealing with before the units get here.” She nodded again and stood with her back to him, staring at the horizon rather than see the dead man again. What Jason saw was a man who looked approximately a decade older than him and Lacy. He had a mustache and was dressed in layers. The air was chill but not freezing, so Jason ruled out exposure as a means of death. He used his pen to gently shift things away from the body, searching for signs of a struggle or trauma. He found none. Except for the fact that he was dead, the man looked perfectly healthy.

  The units arrived and began setting up a perimeter. They knew what to do, and they were both older than him, but Jason was still in charge. If he thought about it too much, that unnerved him. Today he wouldn’t stick around to carry things to completion, though; he couldn’t. In an hour, he was supposed to drive Lacy to the dentist. While he hated to hand off the reins of an investigation, he hated to disappoint her more. His job had already forced him to do that too much lately.

  He radioed his dispatch to contact Detective Arroyo and the coroner. While he waited for them to arrive, he retrieved his camera and began taking pictures. He also handed Lacy a statement form. She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at the familiar routine. He winked at her and did as much as he could until the other detective and doctor arrived. When they did, Detective Arroyo looked confused.