Love Kills

by Edna Buchanan

  The evidence said otherwise. Rose petals and birdseed were everywhere, scattered about the church entrance, littering the flagstone path. Many brides use them now instead of rice, which can be harmful to wildlife. The trail of seeds and petals led into the parking lot.

  It was as empty as the church.

  “What’s the address of the reception?” I asked Lacey, my voice shrill.

  He murmured something I couldn’t quite make out as I clambered back into the car.

  “What?” I asked irritably.

  “I said, I think we’re out of gas.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The names of the happy couple, MARSH AND NANCY LEE, blinked in lights on the marquee. The banquet hall resembled a Bavarian castle at the height of Oktoberfest. The parking lot was packed.

  The wedding reception had been under way for hours by the time we arrived.

  I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. Stiff from sitting so long, on planes, in airports, and then in the car, I felt painfully aware of my bloated belly, swollen feet, and crumpled appearance.

  “You look nice,” Lacey lied, trying to be kind as I attempted to drag a comb through my matted hair. It had finally dried, but the combination of rainwater and a cooler climate had produced a thick blob, resembling a cowlick, in front.

  “First impressions are important,” I said, still irritable, “especially if you want to appear credible. These people have to believe us.”

  Lacey hunted for a parking space.

  My heart pounded. I was about to confront Marsh Holt, at last.

  “Won’t he be surprised to see me,” I said grimly.

  “Think he’ll go postal?” Lacey looked worried.

  “No way.” I shook my head. “Cowards like him might drown a trusting woman or push her off a cliff, but not in front of eyewitnesses. He won’t become violent in a crowd. What would he gain? He’d make himself look bad and us more believable. No, he’ll stonewall, pretend he doesn’t know us. He’ll tell security we’re wedding crashers and try to have us thrown out before we can ask questions. I wish Lottie was here to shoot his picture with the new bride. I’d like a complete set.”

  I painfully forced my feet into a pair of pumps and tried to smooth out the wrinkles in my no-longer-crisp maternity top. Both efforts were losing propositions.

  Why worry? I thought. I’m not an invited guest, I’m a reporter chasing a story. That story is the light at the end of the tunnel, and I have tunnel vision. But normally I didn’t look like this. I sighed. Would I ever look normal again?

  “Ready?” Lacey watched me dab on lip gloss in an effort to mitigate the damage.

  I nodded. “Here’s the plan. He’ll spot me right away. I stand out like a sore thumb. But he probably won’t recognize you as quickly.

  “So as soon as we’re inside, I beeline right to him and start lobbing questions. Loudly, if I have to. I need a reaction from him, a few good quotes: denials or attempts to explain.

  “Meanwhile, find the bride, unless she’s standing right next to him. If she is, find her parents instead. Check the head table. Ask anybody, including the help. Everybody knows the father. He’s the one writing the checks.

  “Take her or her parents aside, explain in private who we are, why we’re here, and why Nancy cannot leave with him. Here.” I slid a color photo from my folder. “Show them their new son-in-law’s wedding picture with Suzanne.”

  Lacey took the picture, his eyes lingering on Suzanne’s face.

  “Unless he has me thrown out,” I went on, “I’ll join you and the parents after the groom runs from my questions.”

  “What will you ask him?”

  I shrugged. “Aren’t you concerned about Nancy’s safety, since none of your other brides survived the honeymoon?

  “Do you remember Suzanne, Vanessa, Colleen, Rachel, Gloria, and Alice?

  “Did you kill them?

  “How rich has their life insurance made you?

  “How is it that the Calypso Dancer has reappeared after you swore you saw it sink with Vanessa aboard?

  “His answers, if any, should make good reading. And the nature of the questions should ensure Nancy’s safety, should she be foolish enough to leave with him. Once he knows we know, he won’t dare hurt her.”

  I slipped my notebook and pen into my pocket.

  Lacey held my hand as we walked toward the reception hall. “Ready?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  The celebration—the music, singing, laughing, and dancing—swept over us as he pushed open the door.

  The huge hall was full. A band played onstage as a man at the microphone crooned “You Are So Beautiful.” Members of the wedding party were scattered like flowers among the crowd, their same-style gowns in shades ranging from lavender and amethyst to deep purple. Unlike any other bridesmaid’s dresses I’d ever seen, they were stunning. Bevies of small boys in tiny tuxes chased adorable little flower girls in miniature bridesmaid gowns. They and the boys skidded, scrambled, and darted across the floor, shrieking and ducking among the dancers, caught up in that giddy hysteria that immediately precedes bumps, tears, and hurt feelings.

  Glittery well-dressed guests partied, drank, and ate. The gigantic wedding cake had been cut. An entire layer of what was probably a six-tiered cake remained on a canopied table with silver servers, stacked dessert plates, and scattered rose petals. The rich dark chocolate-espresso cake was raspberry-filled and covered by thick buttercream frosting: spun sugar roses and tulips. The sight nearly brought tears to my eyes.

  It took me a moment to discern what was missing from this picture. The goddamn groom; where was he? Did Marsh Holt see me waddle through the wide front door? Did he snatch up his bride and flee?

  I scanned the crowd. The star of this event, the woman of the moment, the only female in a wedding gown, should be easy to spot. No sign of her.

  I caught Lacey’s eye from across the room. He shrugged. He hadn’t seen them either.

  I mingled, craned my neck, ignored curious stares. The newlyweds had to be elsewhere on the premises, posing for pictures in front of a phony fountain or flower garden.

  “Have you seen the bride and groom?” I asked an older couple strolling hand in hand off the dance floor.

  “They’re gone. They had a plane to catch.” She smiled and checked her watch. “They’re off on their honeymoon.”

  “Are you sure?” My knees nearly buckled.

  She saw my stricken expression.

  “Did you miss seeing them?” she asked sympathetically.

  “We tried to make it in time,” I croaked, suddenly cold, hoarse, and on the verge of tears. “Storms diverted our flight so we had to drive. We’ve been driving all day.”

  “You poor thing,” she said warmly. She took my hand and led me to her table. “Nancy Lee will understand. Sit down. Relax. Eat something. Have some cake. Enjoy what’s left of the party.”

  She didn’t need to invite me twice. My feet throbbed. It felt as though I were walking on swollen logs. I should never have forced on my shoes. How would I get them off? I dropped heavily into a chair at her table. Her name was Sophie and she introduced me to her husband.

  The lace-covered table was bright with silver flowers and crystal, and littered with bridal favors, instant photos of the bridal couple. I glommed a few of the best. Marsh Holt, aglow and happy in well-tailored black tie, looked even more handsome without the sunburn and the sad, heartbroken eyes.

  I had hors d’oeuvres in each hand and my new friend, Sophie, had gone off to procure me a piece of the wedding cake when Lacey appeared.

  “You were supposed to back me up.” His usually placid gray eyes sparked accusingly.

  “You’ve got to taste this.” I moaned in ecstasy.

  Crisp apples had been scooped into perfect little globes that arrived on toothpicks, accompanied by three ramekins. One contained a warm golden caramel sauce, the second was shredded coconut, and the third finely chopped peanuts.

/>   “Here’s what you do.” I demonstrated the technique I had quickly mastered. “First, dip the apple in the caramel, then in the coconut, and last the peanuts. How good is that?”

  He chewed thoughtfully, nodding his head.

  “Sophie said the entire menu is made up of Nancy Lee’s recipes. She’s writing a cookbook.”

  “Sophie?”

  I nodded in her direction. She waved back from the cake table as she maneuvered a giant slice with a big spun sugar rose onto a tiny cake plate.

  I licked my lips in anticipation and smiled back gratefully.

  “What happened?” I asked Lacey.

  “Gone,” he said, eyes hollow. “The bride and groom left more than an hour ago.”

  “I knew that.”

  He watched me swirl another crisp apple globe in the golden caramel sauce.

  “This isn’t the real me,” I said, self-consciously wiping the sweet sauce off my chin. “Believe me, I’ve never been like this before. I have a license to eat.”

  “Maybe it should be suspended,” he said, lips tight. “I tried to talk to the parents. The father blew me off, said he has too much to do and I’ll have to wait my turn. He’s settling up with the caterers, the band, the bartenders, the photographers, and the parking valets. His wife is indisposed, he said, in a private room upstairs. She drank champagne all day to celebrate. Now she’s on a crying jag, hysterical because her little girl got married.”

  Lacey looked bewildered.

  “Figures.” I smiled adoringly at Sophie as she slid the cake plate in front of me.

  “I brought a big piece for your husband too,” she said. “I saw him join you.”

  I thanked her and checked my watch. “The honeymooners are already in the air,” I told Lacey. “Sophie says they caught a ten o’clock flight.”

  She nodded and filled us in on their plans. The newlyweds had embarked upon a romantic adventure, alone in a remote cabin where they could hike, sightsee, and experience Mother Nature’s most romantic phenomenon. The happy couple was en route to Fairbanks to see the salmon swim upstream to spawn.

  Fairbanks, Alaska.

  “Nancy’s so-o-o creative,” Sophie cooed. “Another Martha Stewart. She plans to do an entire show on it when they get back. On the salmon, I mean. Not the honeymoon, of course.” She looked toward the dance floor and giggled like a schoolgirl. Her frisky husband, who’d been chatting with friends at another table, was doing a solo samba, headed her way. She opened her arms, he whisked her from her chair, and they were off to the dance floor.

  “Aren’t they cute?” I said, watching them twitch their hips and hug. “Married thirty-two years. He was Nancy Lee’s pediatrician.”

  “Hope we last that long.” He winked. “We already fight like a married couple.”

  “Sorry I didn’t correct her when she called you my husband, but she was so nice that I didn’t want her to be disillusioned by the fact that we’re not married, to each other or to anybody else.”

  “Fine by me.” He shrugged. “But I’m not paying child support.”

  It was the first laugh we’d shared all day.

  “We have reason, good reason, to believe that your daughter, Nancy Lee, is in danger. We tried to reach her before the wedding, but we were too late.”

  The father of the bride wagged his finger at me.

  “Young lady, you must be the one who called my home today. My niece, Marisa, answered. She told us what you said. It upset my wife, one of the reasons she’s upstairs in her current state, something else I have to deal with now. All I can say for sure is that you will not spoil our Nancy’s honeymoon. I won’t allow it. She deserves this happiness. Whatever happens after, we can take care of.

  “My daughter, God bless her, is an achiever, a workaholic. She never stops. We were afraid she would never settle down, never give us the grandchildren we dearly want. Our new son-in-law is a blessing from God. The son we never had.”

  The familiar words chilled my heart.

  “I won’t listen to any talk against him, no matter what happened in the past between the two of you. He made his choice.”

  I insisted I had not come to claim paternity, and that Marsh Holt was not my baby’s father. “That’s utterly ridiculous,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Keep saying that.”

  We showed him wedding pictures: Marsh Holt with Vanessa, Marsh Holt with Suzanne.

  He stared at them uncertainly for a moment, then smiled triumphantly. “Computers!” he announced. “That’s what people do with computers today. You see it on the Internet all the time. Pictures of JFK playing poker with Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe sitting on Joseph Stalin’s lap. People with computers can insert anybody into a picture with somebody else. These mean nothing; Nancy Lee’s happiness means everything. Leave her alone.”

  No point in arguing with him or his hysterical wife, who wandered out of hiding long enough to see us deep in conversation with her husband in the now shadowy and nearly empty hall. She stared at me, burst into tears, and ran back upstairs.

  Before I left, I wrote the Hansens’ Boston telephone number on my card and pressed it into the father’s sweaty hands. “Please call these people,” I said earnestly. “It’s important.”

  We went to a brightly lit all-night diner for coffee and found a booth.

  “They’re in denial,” I told Lacey. “I think they know something is wrong with the man. They just don’t realize how serious it is.”

  We studied the instant photos of Nancy Lee Holt and her new husband.

  Nancy, somewhat older than the others, wasn’t at all what I expected. But none of Holt’s brides were clones.

  Nancy’s mouth, her smile, her teeth, were all big and very white, perfect for television. She had the hungry look of a woman focused on food, its origins, its character, how to stalk, prepare—and devour it. She appeared to have never missed a meal. She was solidly built and buxom, with ample hips ideal for childbearing, should she live that long.

  Unlike the serial killers who stalk look-alike victims to fulfill dark fantasies, each victim Holt selected was different. What mattered most to him was not that they all had pierced ears and long brown hair worn straight and parted in the middle, but that each was ambitious, successful—and insurable. His were not the usual obsessive sexual fantasies. Marsh Holt was all about greed and ego.

  What he did share in common with other serial killers was that he depersonalized his victims. Holt saw them as worthless objects who deserved the fate he meted out to them.

  My meat-loaf special arrived, and I shoved the pictures aside.

  Lacey sipped his coffee, red-eyed and exhausted. “What do we do now?” he asked, as I dug into my mashed potatoes.

  “Find a place to sleep,” I said, buttering a roll. “Preferably a single room with twin beds. We have to go easy on travel expenses.”

  He nodded and yawned. “What then?”

  “We buy warm jackets and socks, I guess.”

  “What is the temperature in Fairbanks this time of year?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, as I poured more gravy, “but we’re about to find out.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Eventually, I reached an FBI agent after calling repeatedly during the night. We did the dance. I pushed, he stayed skeptical. I persuaded, he sounded preoccupied. I cajoled, he remained aloof. I dropped the names of several agents I knew in Miami.

  “Please, give one of them a call. Ask about me, my reputation, my credibility. A woman is in mortal danger. Her new bridegroom is a serial killer. I am so sure of it that I’m flying to Fairbanks to warn her. He takes these women across state lines and kills them, each one in a different jurisdiction. Surely this is an FBI case.”

  He called back midmorning to say that an agent would be available to meet with me in Fairbanks the following day.

  Hallelujah! I thought. Progress at last. With the FBI involved, the local police would surely cooperate.

  I resis
ted my initial urge to share the good news with Fred. I was already in trouble. I felt like a fugitive on the lam. I hadn’t stayed in touch as promised. I’d ignored his calls and e-mails. I had to; otherwise I’d have to explain where I was and where I was going. The man was my boss; he could say no. The News was funding all this. Being denied permission would leave me in an untenable position. Instead, I had to duck, run, do what I had to do, and face the music later. This was a great story. Do it right, I told myself, and you’ll still have a job.

  Unlike me, Lacey dutifully answered his cell phone; his boss was in a state of high anxiety. The annual meeting with major clients, an account for which Lacey was responsible, was thirty-six hours away. Because of me, Lacey had neither completed his presentation nor briefed colleagues who might save the day in his absence. Big deal, big bucks, big crisis. Crunch time; his job was at stake.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ll fly home today, work like hell on the plane, get it over with, then hop the next flight back up to meet you. I’m sorry, Britt, I don’t know how else to handle it. I can’t afford to be out of work right now.”

  “No sweat,” I said. “You don’t need to come to Alaska. While the FBI and the local cops protect Nancy, I’ll get everything I’m looking for, wrap up my reporting, and go back to Miami.”

  I tousled his hair and hugged him goodbye at the airport. Though I’m not quite a decade older, I felt almost maternal toward him.

  “I’m letting you down,” he murmured, his gray eyes misty.

  “Not. Are you joking? You’ve gone way above and beyond. I couldn’t be more grateful, couldn’t have come this far without you. I’ll keep you posted on everything.”

  That sad beautiful boy turned to stride down the secured concourse and then hesitated and looked back, as though changing his mind.