Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part

by Peggy Dulle

  “I knew you’d like it.” She patted my hand.

  Talk of the invitation color led to the flowers’ color, and then on to other wedding stuff. It kept Savanah and me going while Tom ate. The man could sure put away a large quantity of food. Most people were taking little bites of food; Tom was eating a full meal.

  In the end Tom picked: Chicken Marsala, Margarita Chicken, London Broil and Apple Cream Pork Chops. No fish.

  Amelia came over and asked, “How was the food?”

  “It was great. Tom had a hard time picking his favorite,” I told her.

  She turned to Savanah, “Thanks for coming early and helping with everything, Savanah.”

  “No problem. I needed to take care of something in Modesto, so I just came over rather than going all the way home,” Savanah said.

  “Can we show Tom where the wedding will be?” I asked.

  Savanah looked at her watch. “Amelia’s got a wedding this evening; I don’t think she’ll have time to show us.”

  “Yes, the ceremony is at a local church and then the reception starts here at seven. I’ve got to break all of this down and then set up everything.”

  Savanah rose. “It’s time for us to go and let this woman get to work.”

  “That’s true. If you want to stop by during the week, I can show you,” Amelia stood to go.

  Most of the couples had left and the staff was starting to clear out the lawn.

  I frowned and Tom, being the man I loved, said, “If you show us where the wedding is going to be, I’ll help break down the tables and stack all your chairs.”

  “You’re on,” Amelia said.

  “Well, I do need to go. I will see you all next Saturday.” Savanah waved and got into her Lexus and drove away.

  “Nice car,” Tom replied as we watched her go down the driveway.

  “Savanah has become a wonderful wedding planner. She calls every few days and Hazel says she checks on our progress with the flowers. I worked with her last year but she’s so much more efficient and thorough now. She even offered to help in any way that she can. She has lots of contacts with other reception facilities. Savanah really wants your wedding to come off without any troubles.”

  “She’s a friend of my sister’s,” I said.

  “That’s explains it, this is like a family wedding,” Amelia said.

  I wouldn’t have said we were that close, but I appreciated Savanah being efficient and thorough, too. This wedding wouldn’t have been able to happen without her.

  “Follow me and I’ll show you where the wedding will be,” Amelia walked toward the left of the house.

  Tom put his arm around me and smiled.

  “Thanks for offering to help her with the tables. I know you have to still be sore from the accident.”

  “You want to see it again, we’ll see it again.”

  “You’ll have to use your imagination, Tom. The arbor that we’ll be married under will be decorated with red and white flowers and also some greenery.”

  “I don’t have your imagination, Liza, but I think I can envision it,” Tom laughed and hugged me tighter.

  We followed Amelia around the house and I think Tom could have imagined it perfectly except for Amelia’s high-pitched scream and the dead girl in the middle of the grass where the guests’ chairs would be set up.

  Chapter 31

  Tom immediately put his arms around me and pulled me back.

  “Stay here,” he said and then he scooped up Amelia and pulled her back to me.

  I took Amelia’s hand while Tom went to check the body.

  Tom looked up and when our eyes met, he shook his head. Then he pulled his phone from his pocket and started dialing.

  I took another look at the body. Her chest was ripped open, even worse than the other two women. I guessed more than twenty stab wounds, this time. She was a petite woman with long red hair, maybe thirty years old, but she had a rough edge to her looks and I could see a series of tribal tattoos that started at her right ankle and continued up her right leg. The same style tattoos were also down her right wrist. I froze.

  “Tom,” I whispered, but the fear in my voice made him glance at me.

  He raised his eyebrows in a question.

  “Look at her right hand,” I said.

  He glanced down and saw it. In her right hand was a clown figurine. It didn’t belong at a wedding reception venue and I bet it didn’t belong to the dead woman either.

  Tom glanced from the figurine to me, then he mouthed, “Get her out of here.”

  I took Amelia around the house and we sat on the bench. She was crying and I patted her on the back.

  “It’s Tanya,” Amelia cried.

  “She’s a friend?”

  “No, she’s family.” Amelia’s crying turned to sobbing and I rubbed her back to comfort her.

  The sirens came a few minutes later.

  Tom came around the corner and I said, “Can I take Amelia to her office? It’s where we met to discuss the wedding plans.”

  He nodded and said, “I’ll meet the officers and take them back.”

  “Let’s go inside,” I told Amelia. She stood and walked with me.

  We went into the building where we had discussed and picked out the table linens and items for the table setting.

  We sat down on the couch in the corner.

  “Who is Tanya?” I asked.

  “She’s my cousin’s daughter.”

  “I am sorry for your loss,” I told her.

  “Tanya was doing so well. She’s been in and out of trouble since she was thirteen. She even spent time in prison. She got out last month and I gave her a job. She had some real talent for decorating with flowers. Tanya was going to be making your bridal bouquet.”

  An ex-con was making a cop’s future wife’s wedding bouquet and she gets killed – there’s irony in that statement.

  Amelia’s eyes went wide, “In fact, she came in today to start working on the table decorations for tonight’s wedding reception. What will I do now?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Amelia. We’ll figure out something,” I told her, although I didn’t know what. I didn’t know any floral designers personally.

  We heard more sirens and I wanted to keep Amelia talking, so I asked, “Lots of people, like Tanya, make mistakes and then they turn their life around.”

  “Yes,” she nodded quickly. “Tanya was like that. I know she’s not been a good girl but she was really trying.”

  “What was she in jail for?” I asked.

  “She took some money and she couldn’t stay off the drugs, but she was doing better. She’s been clean for almost two years.”

  “Is that how long she was in jail?”

  “Yes,” Amelia said. “She wanted to be a nurse. Tanya was looking into going to the junior college and becoming a nurse.”

  “Being a nurse is a hard job,” I said.

  “Yes, but Tanya liked it. She worked in the prison hospital before she got out and she wanted to continue to help people.”

  “It’s good that she wanted to help people.”

  “That’s what’s important, right? In the end, she wanted to help people.” Amelia looked at me with pleading eyes.

  “Yes, it is,” I told her, although I had no clue. Could you undo years of hurting people by wanting to help in the end?

  “I hope so,” Amelia said, wiping the tears from her face.

  “Did she like clowns?” I asked.

  Amelia looked at me, puzzled, then said, “No, actually she was afraid of them. She was at a park when she was five and a clown came up to her. Tanya ran away from him and climbed up a tree. The fire department came and got her down.”

  Tom stuck his head in the door and said, “The detectives want to talk to Amelia.”

  Amelia immediately started shaking and crying again.

  “Can I go with her?” I asked.

  “No, I said I’d bring her to them and then we need to go. This isn’t my investigation
.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him and then nodded toward my open right hand.

  He shook his head.

  What the hell did that mean?

  “We need to go, Amelia,” Tom said.

  “What about the tables and chairs?” I said.

  “They’re going to close this place down. It’s a crime scene.”

  “There’s a wedding reception tonight, Tom. Would you want our wedding postponed because of this?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Tell them they must get what they need now and let this woman get ready for the reception.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to them.” Then to Amelia he said, “Ma’ am, if you come with me, I’ll take you to the detective that will be investigating the young woman’s death.”

  “Her name was Tanya,” I told him.

  He nodded and said, “The detectives will find out who killed Tanya.”

  Tom did a great job, he got the detectives to let him and my FBI entourage break down the tables and stack the chairs while they talked to Amelia. The crime scene techs would work through the rest of the afternoon and be gone so Amelia could set up for the wedding reception that would start at eight. It helped that one of the detectives and two of the officers were recently married. Then I remembered that Tanya was supposed to do all the table decorations for the reception and Amelia didn’t have anyone else to do it.

  I called Savanah.

  “Hi, Liza. What did Tom think of the place for the wedding reception?”

  “He never got to see it. Look, there is no easy way to say this but a woman was killed here and Amelia needs someone to help make table decorations for tonight’s wedding reception.”

  “That’s awful. I’ve got a guy who’s great. I’ll call him.”

  “Thanks, Savanah.”

  “Who was killed?”

  “A family member of Amelia’s,” I told her.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll call Pedro, right now. Then I’ll call Amelia and let her know that he’ll be there by early evening to help her with the table decorations and any other flower arrangements she needs for tonight’s reception.”

  I hung up just as Tom came around the corner. He took my arm and hustled me toward the Jeep.

  He opened the door and I climbed into the passenger seat.

  When he got into the driver’s seat and closed the door, I said, “Is this another victim of the same serial killer?”

  “I don’t know. I told the detective a quick version of what was going on and he said he’d send the crime scene reports, photos, and victim information to ViCAP.”

  He started the engine and pulled out of the driveway. The black sedan pulled out behind us.

  “Why are we in such a hurry?” I asked.

  “Did you get a good look at the body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remind you of anyone?”

  Then I got it. She looked like Kathy Mitchell and Miranda Carter. Tanya looked like me.

  “This can’t be related to me.”

  “Think about it, Liza. For six years, the serial killer’s victims were so diverse that no one ever saw the pattern, until a few weeks ago. Then he started killing short, thirty-ish women, with long brown or red hair. He started killing you.”

  “It doesn’t have to be me. It could be his mother or girlfriend and it’s just a coincidence that she looks like me,” I told him.

  “I hate coincidences,” Tom accelerated onto the freeway. While he drove, he called someone and asked that Bill and Brandon be reassigned to my house, if they were up to it, and he wanted Art and Maury there every day.

  “I’m being smothered,” I mumbled.

  Tom heard me because he responded with, “Better smothered than dead.” And his tone of voice said there would be no arguing with him on the subject of how large my FBI entourage would get this next week.

  “I’m going to have to tell Amelia that my estimate for the wedding is way off, if you keep adding FBI guys.”

  “There can’t be enough, as far as I’m concerned.” Tom’s voice shook a bit.

  I reached over and put my hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m scared for you, Liza.”

  “I’ve been in tough scrapes before,” I reminded him.

  “This is different. I can feel it in my gut that this is all about you. This killer is leading up to you and what better day to take your life than at our wedding?”

  “Vegas or the courthouse is starting to look really good to me, Tom,” I said, starting to feel some of his anxiety.

  He snorted. “No, you’re getting the wedding you want if it kills me.”

  “I don’t want either of us to get killed, Tom.”

  A few minutes later, my phone rang.

  “You found another dead body?” Justin asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “Police scanner. I knew you were going to the Gardens this morning and that’s the address that came over the scanner.”

  “It’s another victim by the same killer. The girl held a clown figurine in her hand.”

  “Liza,” Tom said.

  “Hang on, Justin,” I said into the phone, then to Tom, “what?”

  “Is that Justin?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d he know about the dead woman already?”

  “Police scanner,” I told him.

  “I’ve got to talk to that boy,” Tom muttered under his breath.

  “Why is it everywhere we go there are clowns?” Justin asked, pulling my attention back to him.

  I chuckled. “It’s not the clown’s fault. How’s your digging into the victims’ financials going?”

  “I’m still knee deep in numbers but I did find something weird.”

  “What?”

  “One of the female victims, not the newest ones, but one from six months ago has a withdrawal from her checking account for three hundred dollars the week before she was killed.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “I doubt it. She barely had five hundred in her account, worked as a waitress, and was renting a small apartment in Seattle. She didn’t have enough money to be a blackmail victim.”

  “Okay, then what do you think she did with the money?”

  “I don’t know, but one of the lawyers that was killed three months ago had a deposit in his account a day later of three hundred dollars.”

  “You think these two knew each other? Did she pay him three hundred dollars for something and then was killed the next week? And if they are related why did the lawyer get killed three months later?”

  “All good questions, Teach. I don’t know.”

  “Why does someone pay a lawyer with cash?”

  “Anonymity?” Justin suggested.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Kenny.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep digging.”

  “What’s going on?” Tom asked.

  I told him what Justin said, then dialed Kenny.

  “Hi, Stretch. How was the food tasting?”

  “Yummy, except we stumbled over another dead body.”

  Kenny laughed. “Stretch, you are a magnet for trouble.”

  “I’m ignoring that comment. I have a question about lawyers.”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “Why would someone pay a lawyer with cash?”

  “The person may not want anyone to know that they’ve gone to a lawyer or the lawyer doesn’t want his or her name attached to that client or wants to avoid paying the taxes. Are we talking about a large amount?”

  “No, just a few hundred dollars.”

  “That’s probably just a consult fee.”

  “What would the person get from the consult?”

  “It’s usually an answer to a legal question. The lower the money we’re talking about, the less time the lawyer will devote to the person. How much are we talking about?”

  “Three hundred dollars.”

  “Maybe only one question,” Kenny said.

&nbs
p; “Is this something you would do?”

  “No, I’m a corporate lawyer, although I also do some litigation and real estate law. Corporations pay big bucks to keep us under retainer just in case they need us and if I have a new client, it’s all done by purchase orders. I rarely deal with individual needs or questions.”

  “Then a criminal lawyer?” I suggested, which would fit into my sexual assault of a minor slant or some other similar problem a person might have.

  “Sure, or personal injury lawyer, maybe even family law or bankruptcy. Why do you ask? Did the victim pay a lawyer before she died?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know much about her except that she’s dead.”

  “Who was killed today?”

  “A family member of the person who owns the Gardens.”

  “How old was she?”

  “I’d say in her thirties. Amelia, that’s the lady that owns the Gardens, said she recently got out of prison but she was turning her life around. It’s very sad.”

  “It always is, so I guess she was a bleached blonde, muscled bound woman covered in tattoos?”

  “She did have a lot of tattoos. I think they covered half her body, but she was petite with long red hair.”

  “Did she have on a piece of jewelry that didn’t belong to her?” Kenny asked.

  “Not that I know of but she did have a little clown figurine in her right hand and according to her aunt, Tanya hated clowns.”

  “Now that is interesting,” Kenny said.

  “Yeah, so whoever is killing these people is leaving more than just jewelry.”

  “Wait a minute, you said these people, not those women. Are we talking about more than three women?”

  My eyes grew wide and Tom glanced over and mouthed, “What?”

  I covered the phone and said, “I think I just told Kenny about all the dead people.”

  “How?”

  “With my big mouth,” I said.

  “Stretch!” I heard Kenny yelling at the phone.

  “Yes,” I said to Kenny.

  “How many people are we talking about? And is this your next case?”

  “Thirty, and yes and no.”

  “What do you mean, yes and no?”

  “It’s not like the other cases. I didn’t get a wrong date on my computer, or an email, or a strange note. When Justin and I started looking into the two Anaheim women’s deaths, you suggested that the jewelry that was left was the key, so we started looking into deaths where jewelry was left at the scene that didn’t belong to the victim.”