He carried his treasure chest over to the refrigerator.
“Will you excuse me, Abby?” Sylvia said. “I have to see if Megan is ready to head for Galveston.”
She hurried out of the kitchen and down the hall, leaving me to deal with her brother-in-law.
After Graham stacked as many beers as he could in the already overloaded refrigerator, he grabbed two sausage kolaches and joined me at the table. Somewhere upstairs, a radio or stereo blared, heavy metal music now our muted background noise.
Graham looked up at the ceiling. “Christ, I’m glad Courtney’s staying here and not with me.” The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and his breath smelled like the beer he’d probably had on his way here.
“Um, Sylvia tells me you’re from Dallas. Very different than Houston, huh?” I was hoping to move on to a safe, nonfamily related topic. Where the heck was Megan when I needed her?
“Both places are damn hot in the summer and damn ugly in the winter. But with your money, you probably take plenty of vacations when the weather turns nasty.” He chomped into a kolache.
I had no intention of talking to him about my private life, so I changed the subject. “You sure did come to the rescue the other day after your brother died,” I said. “I know Megan and Sylvia are grateful for your help.”
He cocked his head, squinted as if considering this. “My brother. Funny to hear you refer to him as my brother. He would have liked to forget, that’s for sure.” The little hitch in his voice added enough sadness to cancel out his attempt at sounding smug. He stood abruptly and walked over to the refrigerator, but rather than choose a beer as I would have expected, he started rummaging around for something else.
Thanks to our conversation at the reception, I’d already assumed Graham and his brother weren’t best buddies. If the bankruptcy had created bitterness between them, if they’d hardly spoken over the years, I could understand why Graham was staying in a hotel rather than here, even though this house could have handled plenty of guests. Chief Fielder would be wise to take a good long look at brother Graham.
I heard a small rustling sound and turned in the direction of the family room, where the string quartet had played during the reception. Megan held up a sheet of paper with the words Meet me at the Kroger parking lot in fifteen minutes printed in black marker. She disappeared an instant before her uncle turned around holding a carton of orange juice.
I stood. “Good talking to you, Mr. Beadford, but I need to be going.”
“It’s Graham. James was the only Mr. Beadford in this family.”
“Okay, Graham it is,” I said. “I’ll probably see you at the funeral.”
“Right,” he said distractedly, opening one cupboard after another, now apparently looking for a glass.
I slipped out the back door and felt my tight neck muscles ease the minute I started down the wooden deck stairs. Even today’s dreary weather seemed brighter than that house of gloom.
From where I’d parked at the Kroger lot on the main highway, I’d watched Travis barrel by with Sylvia in the passenger seat of his Ford Explorer ten minutes after I’d arrived. Megan pulled up alongside me shortly after. I quickly explained about my visit with Sister Nell and what a new copy of her birth certificate might tell us.
We then made the trip to downtown Houston in separate cars and after we arrived at the Bureau of Vital Statistics near Reliant Stadium, we received visitor badges from security. Megan and I waited in line to make her application, and once she’d turned in her paperwork, we sat on one of the long wooden benches in the center of the waiting area. Nothing happened in a hurry in places like this. We’d be here awhile—Megan, me, and the cultural rainbow that is Houston. Browns, blacks, white and yellows, old and young, they were all here en masse, a steady flow coming and going, coming and going.
Megan sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “This may sound uncaring, but I feel relieved to be out of the house and away from my family.”
“You don’t sound uncaring to me. Right after Daddy’s funeral, my sister and I took a long weekend in California. Helped a lot. I suggest you reschedule your honeymoon as soon as you can. Where were you going, by the way?”
“Travis and I wanted to go to the Caribbean, but Dad handed us two first-class tickets to Hawaii before we could even make plans.”
“And how did Travis feel about your father making the decision for you?” I was remembering the argument I witnessed between father and son-in-law at the reception and wondered if that had been the source of their disagreement.
Megan said, “Travis is so easygoing, he had no problem with Dad stepping in. I had my heart set on snorkeling in Grand Cayman, but Travis said a sunny day was the same anywhere as long as we were together.” She smiled, then dropped her gaze to her lap and twisted her shiny gold wedding band. “I can’t imagine celebrating our first anniversary. It will seem like I’m betraying Dad if we enjoy ourselves.”
“Time will help.” I fell into silence, troubled by her describing Travis as “easygoing.” I hoped Megan wasn’t in for the kind of surprises my former husband had served up not long after we were married. The ex had added new meaning to the phrase love is blind. I think blind, deaf, and plain stupid more aptly described me.
“You and Travis seem very much in love,” I finally said.
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How did you meet?”
She smiled. “On a blind date I set up for Margie—you remember Margie?”
“Maid of honor?” I said.
“Right. Anyway, Holt McNabb works for my dad, and one day when I visited the office, Holt asked me out. I’d never been attracted to him, but Dad thought I should give him a chance since Holt had expressed interest in dating me. I suggested Holt set up Margie with one of his friends and we could all do a movie or something. Margie’s blind date turned out to be Travis, and the rest is history.”
“So Travis scored points with you when Holt couldn’t?”
“Yup. Travis and I couldn’t take our eyes off each other the whole night.”
“Bet that bruised Holt’s over-the-top ego.”
“He did pout some, but he and Travis go back a long way and apparently Holt was usually the one stealing girlfriends. Travis figures they’re even now.”
“Ask me, you made the right choice.”
“You don’t like Holt?” she asked.
“Don’t know him all that well,” I said.
“He can come across as self-centered, but he’s been great for the business. Dad said Holt’s a born salesman.”
“Really? From the way he tried to sell himself to my sister you’d have thought he couldn’t sell Pepcid to a commodities trader.”
She laughed. “You always cheer me up, Abby. I’m so glad Travis convinced me to get help to search for my birth mother, because otherwise I never would have met you.”
This piece of news sure grabbed my attention. “So Travis convinced you to look for your mother?” I felt a small tightness in my stomach. Travis clearly told me the other night he found out who I really was only after the rehearsal dinner.
“When we first fell in love, I spilled out all my secrets,” she said. “I told Travis I’d been dreaming about meeting my birth mother ever since I’d learned I was adopted.”
“So he knew I was working for you when I showed up for the rehearsal?”
“Sure. Why?”
“No reason.” I decided it was time for a quick change of subject. I might have to discuss this little inconsistency with Travis later. “So when you met with Chief Fielder, did you recognize the woman in the drawing?” I wanted to add, “And do you think she looks like you?”
“No, and I never caught so much as a glimpse of that woman at the reception,” Megan said. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. Who could have invited her?”
So she didn’t notice the resemblance. No surprise. I once stared at a photo of my own birth mother unaware of who she was. I ne
ver picked up on our similar features even though they were literally as plain as the nose on my face.
Megan went on, saying, “Or was she even invited? The engagement picture in the newspaper appeared right before Christmas and had all the ceremony details, so I guess she could have crashed the wedding and followed people to our house afterward.”
“That seems an odd thing to do,” I said. “But maybe people crash weddings all the time and I’ve just never heard about it.”
Megan sat up straighter. “Abby, could she have possibly come to the wedding to kill my dad? Could they have known each other?”
“Maybe, but why pick a day with a house full of witnesses to kill him?” I replied.
“Doesn’t seem logical, does it?”
“And I would think that if you were planning to kill someone, you’d bring a weapon, not count on there being a room full of leaded crystal. I’m thinking your dad’s death resulted from an argument.”
“Yeah. Guess you’re right,” she said.
“When you talked to the chief this morning, did she mention whether she’d found anyone else who had seen this woman inside the house?”
“No, but she showed me a picture taken from the balcony and the woman was clearly visible, so today I gave her the names of the two people I recognized in that same photo. The chief said she’d schedule interviews with them this afternoon to see if they have any idea who the woman is.”
“Maybe Fielder will get lucky, but I saw a whole lot of photographs in her office. Hundreds of them. It’s almost like she has too much to sift through. Plus she’s investigating possible motives. That’s a lot on one cop’s plate.” Fielder was probably delving into Sylvia and James’s relationship, too. And though Megan seemed to think Holt was a favorite of James, those two sure weren’t happy with each other at the rehearsal dinner.
“The chief certainly acts like she knows what she’s doing,” Megan said. “She assured me she’d find the killer.”
“And she will,” I answered, sounding more confident than I felt.
“You want a Coke or something?” Megan asked.
“Sounds good.”
We went in search of a machine, and when we returned and sat down with our drinks, every preschooler in the waiting area decided we were worth staring at or clinging to—probably hoping we’d share our sodas.
Two very long hours later, after we’d been drooled on, kicked, and witnessed a few temper tantrums, Megan’s number flashed above window nine and an electronically generated voice called out the same number over the PA system. We walked up to the clerk together.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, but I never did an adoption certificate before,” the young woman said. She was Hispanic, with flyaway dark hair and giant half-moons of sweat spoiling her burgundy shirt. Definitely frazzled. But she had apologized, and apologies in places like this, where tempers grew short after thirty minutes of waiting and reached the boiling point after two hours, did not come often. We weren’t about to complain.
“You’re very busy. I understand,” Megan replied.
“We will have to assess a search fee,” the clerk said, cringing like she expected one of us to smack her. “It’s because you gave us inaccurate information and—”
“Inaccurate?” I said.
The woman addressed Megan when she answered. “Since you were born in Jamaica, you—”
“Jamaica?” Megan sounded stunned, and I was damn surprised myself.
“Yes. Kingston, Jamaica. Is there a problem?” the clerk asked.
“No,” I cut in, clutching Megan’s arm and squeezing hard. I hoped to convey the message that I would handle this. “She just lost her father a few days ago. That’s probably why she got confused and wrote Kingston Bay rather than Kingston, Jamaica.”
“I am so sorry for your loss, ma’am. Anyway, you must request a certified copy in person in Austin because you were adopted from a foreign country. We can only process certificates for Houston, Kingston Bay, and Brewster at this location.”
“Is there any other information that would speed up the process when we get to Austin?” I asked.
“Well, I’m pretty new here, and I’ve never worked in Austin, so—”
“Maybe the hospital name?” I turned to Megan, who had gone pale as bleached bones. “Do you remember the name of the hospital, Megan?”
She shook her head no, thank goodness.
The woman turned back to the computer. “This may not help, but it’s Duchess of Kent Hospital.”
I stood on tiptoe—the counter separating us was high—and looked at her computer monitor. “You have everything right there, huh?”
“Yes, but we cannot generate—”
“Oh, we understand. You’ve been wonderful,” I said.
The woman smiled with genuine relief. “Thanks. Thanks so much.”
After I paid the search fee at the cashier’s desk, I guided a shocked Megan out of the building and into the adjacent parking garage. When we entered the empty elevator, she finally spoke.
“What the hell does this mean, Abby?”
“It means we might finally get some answers.”
8
We left the elevator and walked to our cars in the garage adjoining the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Megan had said nothing for several minutes, no doubt still trying to make sense of what she’d just heard.
“I don’t understand this, Abby,” she said when we reached our cars. “Why did my parents change the birth certificate?”
“We don’t know if they did,” I said.
She blinked twice, not understanding. “Who else would have done such a thing?”
She was still reeling and this wasn’t a discussion for a parking lot. “I live about fifteen minutes away. Let’s pick up something to eat, sit down at my place, and think this through.”
Megan looked at her watch. “But I have to get home and I have to find out when they’ll release Dad’s body and I—” She stopped talking, and I could see she was fighting tears.
“Are you okay? We could go in my car and I’ll bring you back here later.”
“I’m fine. Really. And I guess I should be happy we found this out, but . . .”
I squeezed her upper arm reassuringly. “Hey, it’s okay to be confused.”
“I do need time to think before I go home or I won’t be able to look my mother in the eye.”
“There’s a great bakery on the way to my place. We’ll stop there first.”
I didn’t know about Megan, but my kolache calories had dried up long ago and I was starving. Megan had told me she wasn’t hungry when we’d stood in line in the bakery/deli, but I bought her a turkey sandwich anyway. As for me, I couldn’t wait to bite into my shaved ham and cheese on Italian herb bread.
Diva greeted us when we came in through my back door, and Megan knelt to pet her. I set the deli bag on the kitchen table and pulled two Diet Cokes from the fridge. We sat down, and Diva immediately jumped on Megan’s lap.
“I’m still messed up about this, Abby,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“We can safely assume someone altered your birth certificate to hide the fact that you were born in Jamaica. This new information may lead us to the truth, but we need to find out who made the changes and why.”
“Why is the big question. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right. But it’s my job to find answers.” I removed our sandwiches from the bag and slid Megan’s in front of her. “Let’s eat. You probably haven’t had any real food since Saturday.”
“I don’t think I have.” She touched her fingers to her forehead, making no effort to unwrap her sandwich. She stared at it for a second, then looked at me. “If my mother deceived me all my life, how can I go home and pretend nothing has changed? How can I grieve for Dad if he lied and—”
“Megan, listen to me. We can’t be sure either of them lied to you. They could have been as much in the dark as you were.”
“Did this . . .
this alteration occur sometime between when I was born and when they adopted me?”
“It must have happened about the time of the adoption or after. Sylvia and James named you, and that was correctly entered in the computer.”
“Oh. Right,” she answered. But I could tell she still was having trouble processing this information. She’d been through too much in the last week.
Just then Diva lifted her head over the edge of the table, sniffed at the sandwich, and planted one mottled charcoal and orange paw tentatively in the direction of the food.
“I’ll figure out what happened. That’s what you hired me for. And now, if you don’t eat, someone else will,” I warned.
Megan smiled, opened the wrapper and pulled off a piece of turkey breast. She set it in front of Diva before picking up her sandwich.
While we ate, I convinced her this new information was exactly what we needed if we wanted to find her birth mother and that I would follow every lead as far as it would take me. Soon she was on her way home, but not before we stopped by City Hall to get new notarized authorizations for release of medical information and a letter stating that Abby Rose of Yellow Rose Investigations was acting on Megan Beadford’s behalf in the matter of her adoption.
I returned home and went to my office after we’d parted downtown, hoping to handle a few inquiries by phone. I figured I could fax the authorizations to Jamaica if needed. But by the time I finished talking to the Adoption Board in Kingston, the Registrar General’s office, the Duchess of Kent Hospital switchboard, and the American Consulate, I had a giant headache and exactly zero information aside from my sincere belief that every living soul in that country had inherited the “we don’t know nothing, mon” gene. This pronouncement was always delivered with amazing goodwill and sometimes a laugh, but it still irritated the hell out of me.
I had just hung up after my fifth try at speaking with the hospital medical records department when Jeff arrived.
“You look . . . stressed out,” he said from the doorway of my office.
“Yah, mon. Maybe if I smoked some ganja like everyone else in Ja-MAY-cah, I could get unstressed.”
A Wedding to Die For Page 9