The Silent Bride

by Glass, Leslie

  April stared at Sergeant Hollis, knowing he'd held out on her. "Lieutenant, could you put that in written form and fax it to Inspector Bellaqua?"

  "Uh-huh, already working on it. You owe me big." He hung up before she could ask him about Tang. Okay, looked like Wendy was it again.

  April got Bellaqua on the line in her office at One PP.

  "Hey, April, what's up?" she asked.

  "Turns out Wendy Lotte is a sport shooter and she has priors. Shoplifting in college. Shot her boyfriend. No charges were pressed. Nothing for seventeen years. At the time of Tovah's shoobng, she was out of sight for twenty minutes."

  "Yeah, I know. What's her story?"

  "She says she was outside having a cigarette. Then she went inside arid was in the ladies' room when she heard the screams."

  "Motive?"

  "I don't know, jealousy? She's an unmarried woman. Apparently she shot her own fiance. I don't have the full story on that. It occurred in Massachusetts. I have the feeling she gets squirmy watching brides walk down the aisle."

  "Yeah, well, a lot of us get squirmy watching brides walk down the aisle, doesn't mean we shoot them." Bellaqua snorted. "Have you spoken to the DA about this?"

  "Not yet. You're my first call. What about you, Inspector? Anything on the bias angle?" April asked, switching gears for a moment.

  "Nothing. The Schoenfelds are highly respected, have no known enemies. Everyone loves them. Same with the synagogue. The Ribikoffs have an ongoing investigation on some of their relatives, but they weren't at the wedding, and there seems to be no connection to this. Same with the real estate issue. Both families are in real estate, but in different areas. That's about it."

  "Has the Riverdale canvass come up with anything?"

  "One lady reported a flasher walking on Palisades Avenue. Could have been Saturday, could have been Sunday. She's not sure. According to her, he waved it at her as she drove by. She says she swerved and almost went off the road, down the bluff, and into the river. Mike is chasing down the missing African who works for Louis. I heard from him an hour ago."

  "Me, too. Anything else from Riverdale?"

  "A number of people reported a parade of strange cars in the area that day. But there's always a lot of activity around the synagogue. Saturdays, people walk. But Sunday is wedding time. A lot of people from out of the area drive in. We do have the plates of every car in the lot. But the killer could have parked on the street, even down on Palisades Avenue."

  April flashed to Kim and his wife. They took off in a car; Louis had a truck. Wendy had a car, too. Lots of possibilities.

  "Do you have anything on the weapon?" she asked.

  "We're still looking for it."

  "What about a computer check on the shell casings?"

  "They're working on it. Look, I'll get with the DA about Wendy."

  "Inspector, does anything strike you about this?"

  "A lot of things. What's on your mind?"

  "Psychologically, I mean. What's the message of the crime?"

  "Strikes me as impersonal," Bellaqua said promptly.

  "Yeah, I didn't think so at first, but now it has the feel of a public execution. I don't know. Maybe I'm dreaming here."

  "Go on. You got a theory?"

  "If it was a rage thing, wouldn't the killer have gotten up-close and personal? Done the thing in private so the victim could look in his face and know her killer? And they've been planning this wedding for, what—only two months? Isn't that kind of rushing things?" April mused. Matthew and Ching had been planning their wedding for eight months.

  "So?"

  "There were a hundred ways to do Tovah with a lot less risk. Where she lives is a cul de sac in a quiet neighborhood. She was a solitary girl, liked to sit on the back porch out of sight of the rest of her family and listen to her Walkman. Anybody who knew her knew that and could have picked her off anytime in her own backyard. We wouldn't have had a clue. What does that tell us about our killer?"

  "Experienced sniper or maybe a country club shooter. Who knows? Whoever it was may not have known the girl, but knew all about the wedding. Wasn't afraid of crowds. Not a professional."

  "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Our shooter didn't know the girl. That's why I'm curious about the weapon. Might be another homicide with the gun in the computer that we don't know about yet. Could give us a link."

  "Yeah, get on them about the gun," Bellaqua agreed.

  Twenty-six

  It's afternoon. He doesn't know what time it is.

  Maybe dark. Maybe not. He's not moving. That's all he knows. He tells himself his story. He was a good boy, one of the good ones. He doesn't like it when people cheat, when they hurt each other. Ask Louis, he know. Ask anybody. Every day he help somebody. Somebody on the street. Tito. A little child. He say the prayers, and he don't do no bad things. This is what he tells himself when he's hiding.

  He's hiding from Louis, from Tito, from all the policemen who could shoot him. He knows the policemen shoot Africans here. They told him that the first day. Don't get in no trouble in New York City. The policemen shoot black boys. Don't go for your wallet, passport. Whatever happens, don't start running.

  He's hiding in the basement, afraid the police will shoot him. The men he shares the damp basement with know they're not supposed to open the door. Too many people live there, and they can't cook or wash. They all know the woman who lives upstairs and takes rent money from them can get in trouble. If they get caught living there, they can be sent back. None of them want to be sent back, so they never open the door.

  He doesn't know what time it is when the woman from upstairs opens the door. He runs to hide behind the tank that makes the water hot for the apartment upstairs, squeezes himself in close to the crumbling wall, and prays no one will find him. Please, God, no one find him.

  "Look, you can see for yourself no one's here," the woman said.

  But two men came in and found him right away.

  "Jama, come out, I won't hurt you," one of them says.

  He starts to cry. He can't help crying. No one is with him now, no one to help him. No Louis, no Tito, no two brothers in Minnesota. The church people told him they only had room for two boys. So he had to stay here. And now he only does what Louis tells him. Then he comes back here. That's it. That's the life he has. He prays for the spirits of the dead. He drinks beer. Sometimes the stories in his head stop for a while and he falls asleep. Somedmes he wakes up sweating, crying. Other times he's screaming.

  In the morning the noise is so loud in the subway. Too many people close together, pushing, looking at him. Laughing if he stumbles on the platform. He's still afraid the doors will close on him. Inside the train, he's scared the doors will open and someone will push him out on the tracks. He knows that happens, too. He's scared when the train stops in the tunnel and no one can get out. When that happens, he's sure they'll all be shot in the dark. Some of the people on the train look like people he used to know. The death soldiers.

  Sometimes he's so scared in that shaking train he can hardly breathe. He's sure the death soldiers know him. Even in the store noises bother him. Little Tito coming up from behind when the hair dryer is on and he doesn't know he's there. He's afraid of planes attacking from the sky.

  He puts the rose stems with the thorns in his pockets and takes them home. At night when he's in a panic, he pokes himself all over his arms and hands with the rose thorns until he's wearing a blanket of blood. Like the blankets of blood on the dead where he came from. He doesn't know why he pokes himself to bleed. He's not a walking dead. Not a boy with stumps where hands and feet should be. He's a whole boy, one of the lucky ones, one of the good ones.

  The man is talking to him, and he's trying to listen. The man has a mustache. He watches the mustache move. He's talking about Louis, something about Louis. Asking what he does in the shop.

  He tells the policeman what he does in the shop, how he copies the way Louis puts the flowers together in the water.
He shows him with his hands. Yes, he likes doing that. He doesn't look at the man when he says it.

  He doesn't say he hates riding in the van when Tito drives. It makes him remember things he doesn't want to remember, but he doesn't say anything about the van. He's so scared of the policeman he can feel his eyes rolling around in his head.

  He knows people here are afraid of him. They look at him and move away on the street. In the subway they move away. He knows the policeman has a gun. He looks up for a second and sees the man's lips moving. He doesn't know what the man is asking him. He's trying to answer the man's question.

  Now the man asks him if he has a gun.

  He shakes his head, not anymore. He does know someone shot the girl. But he didn't do it. He doesn't hurt people. He sweats, worrying that the man might think he hurt people. He doesn't remember ever shoodng anyone or doing anything bad. He sees the pictures in his head, the blood pouring out of screaming people, and the bloody blankets that covered them. But he's sure he was one of the good ones. He tells himself this every day. He was one of the good ones.

  He doesn't know which militia killed the girl. He doesn't know how it works here. His voice starts making no-talk sounds. He's talking no-talk, cowering in front of the man, almost on his knees. Not saying that they came into a quiet place where there were fields and a few huts. They put the first men they saw on a truck, took them away. Later they came back for the women and children.

  They didn't have a system, no list of names. It didn't matter who was who. It was always the same. Whatever side they were on, rebels or army, the enemy was the people in the huts. The enemy was the people in the fields, in the schools, whoever they wanted it to be. Wherever they went, wherever they were, anyone they didn't like the look of was the enemy. Anyone who didn't give them food. Anyone who talked back or resisted. They took those people away, or they killed them right there.

  It always happened fast, like a storm coming up on a sunny day. No warning, no dme to hide. They came in a truck or many trucks, waving guns in the air so everybody ran inside. The boys were in the fields, at school, with their fathers. Sometimes just by themselves away from their mothers. When the men in the trucks came, the girls stayed with their mothers. The boys ran away. That's what happened with him. His father and uncle and two of his cousins were killed. He saw their bodies in the field behind the house and ran away before the soldiers could find him. When the soldiers were gone, people came out of their huts to cry and bury their dead. But the trucks came back. In daylight, at night, didn't make a difference. When they came back they killed the little girls, the babies first; then they raped the bigger girls and the women. Sometimes they didn't rape them, just killed them.

  The first time he came back to his mother. After the second time, he ran away and didn't come back. He was a little boy. He didn't know who shot his father, his uncle, cousins in the field. He didn't know who cut off his sisters' arms with a machete and sliced the baby out of his mother's big belly. He ran away and lived in the forest with other boys he called his brothers, places where no one came. They were sick and many boys died. They were frightened and naked and starving. When men in the trucks found them and gave them food and guns, they became killers, too.

  All this fills his head, and his mouth is talking no-talk. He's peed in Iris pants. The policeman has strapped his wrists behind him. He sees the cuts on his arms and asks about the cuts. Then he asks more questions about his bloody clothes. His ID card. Where is it?

  "What's your real name? Where are you from? Do you have a visa, a green card? Where's your passport?" The policeman asks him more questions.

  He's so scared his eyes roll up in his head. He's forgotten what name is in his papers, what he's supposed to say.

  "Brother," he says. His name is Brother. He knows he's going to be executed right here in this chair. He's big and he's strong and he knows how to fight.

  He strikes out at the policeman with his boots, kicking him in the head so hard the man falls over. The straps holding his arms break apart, freeing him to fight for his life. The other policeman runs over to help. The first one struggles to get up. Now they're all fighting. But he's big. He's the biggest, and he doesn't want to die in this basement.

  Twenty-seven

  April and Inspector Bellaqua and her driver were waiting for Wendy outside her building in the inspector's unmarked four-by-four when she got home. Mike and his partner were off the radar screen somewhere in Brooklyn when Wendy strode up the block at nine-oh-five. The two cops slowly got out of the car. The driver stayed put.

  "Oh, Sergeant Woo." Wendy flashed April an uneasy smile from her higher vantage point of natural height plus spike heels.

  "You know Inspector Bellaqua," April said.

  "Hello," she said, looking down on her, too. "What can I do for you?"

  "We'd like to come inside and ask you a few questions," Poppy told her.

  Wendy hesitated, glanced in both directions, then nodded. "Okay, I understand. Come inside, of course. Maybe you'd like a drink."

  Maybe not. It looked like she'd already had a few. The three women went up in the elevator without exchanging another word. When they got to Wendy's floor, she unlocked her apartment and switched on the light. The place was neat and didn't look as if it had been gone over a few hours ago. If Wendy had any sense that her apartment had been searched while she was out, she didn't show it. She dropped her purse and briefcase on her dining/conference table, then moved purposefully across the living room to the window.

  Bellaqua didn't react, but April's heart raced. Several years ago during an arrest, a female homicide suspect like this one—much larger than herself—had jumped out of a window and tried to pull April out with her. She'd hung on as long as she could before the woman finally twisted out of her grasp and fell four stories. The resulting broken legs did not prevent a jury from convicting her of the two stabbing murders she'd committed.

  "Hold it right there," April barked.

  Wendy stopped and raised her hands. "Okay, no problem. Don't get jumpy on me, ladies."

  Bellaqua moved forward and grabbed the gauzy curtains. Nothing but an air conditioner behind them.

  "Okay if I turn it on?" Wendy asked.

  "Okay." April relaxed, but only a little.

  "What's your problem?" The sheers billowed out in icy air and Wendy gave them a disgusted look as the room cooled. Then she sat on her beige sofa, crossing her excellent legs. "Your reaction is upsetting me."

  Bellaqua's eyes swept the living room as if the search there might have missed something, nodding at April to take the lead. April pulled out her Rosario and read Wendy's words from her notes.

  "The key to your business is planning. You orchestrate everything from beginning to end," she said.

  "It's my living. I'm good at it." Wendy swung one long leg over the other and bobbed her foot. "I've already told both you and Sergeant Hollis everything I know. I gave him my statement."

  "Well, you'd better start over, Miss Lotte," April told her breezily. "You left out a few things."

  "Look, I answered all your questions. You can call me Wendy. Everyone else does," Wendy said calmly. She checked her manicure, as if unconcerned about what was coming.

  "Wendy, I want to level with you. Someone with planning ability, expertise with a rifle, knowledge of the timing of the event, and the ability to move around without suspicion planned and carried out this shooting."

  Wendy nodded seriously. "I'm aware of that. I've been thinking about it, too." She glanced at the inspector, who'd taken a call on her cell phone and wandered off into Wendy's office.

  "And what are your thoughts on the matter?" April went on.

  "I'm not sure. I don't know what to think."

  "Do you think there's a religious basis for the killing?"

  "Maybe. I don't want to go into it though." Wendy shook her foot, studied her nails.

  "We know about your past. We know you can shoot," April said. "We know you can plan.
We know you were there. Your story about where you were at the time of the shooting hasn't been verified. All we're missing on your case is the gun."

  The foot stopped bobbing. Wendy clenched her fist. "Look, I know what you're getting at. I had an accident a long time ago. I was young. I was engaged.

  I changed my mind. The man had other ideas and threatened me." Wendy's face showed pain. It looked pretty real to April except that was not the way the story went up in Massachusetts.

  "I was afraid for my life, but I did not mean to shoot Barry. Even cops are allowed to shoot someone if they're afraid for their lives, isn't that right?" she asked defiantly.

  April shook her head. Nope. They were not allowed to shoot. A good defense lawyer could get a cop off for killing someone sometimes. But allowed to shoot, uh-uh. Shooting someone was always a bad career move. "We're looking hard at you, Wendy. What do you have to say?"

  Bellaqua wandered back into the room. Wendy gave her a hostile stare and bobbed her foot some more. "The bullet grazed his arm. He's still playing golf, has a twenty-four handicap. Believe me, if I'd meant to hurt him I would have taken his driving arm off." Wendy said this with a dght little smile, acknowledging her prowess.

  April locked eyes with Bellaqua. This was a dangerous adversary, a competent person flawed in some fundamental way who could think in terms of taking a man's arm off to spoil his golf game if he angered her. It clicked again. Tovah's death had been an assassination. The perpetrator hadn't wanted her to see what was coming and be afraid. Sadists were people out for revenge and liked the face-to-face high of seeing their victims paralyzed, frandc with terror. They got their kick from the squirm, the fear. Tovah's murder had been a cold hit.