A Wedding to Die For Page 5

  At peace? I wondered if I’d ever be at peace with her, but running away wouldn’t solve that problem. I’d accept her back into my life if only to quit running from the past. But that didn’t mean I’d ever forget how she’d betrayed Kate and me.

  Angel Molina mopped a hefty bite of blueberry pancakes through the puddle of syrup on his plate. I’d finished my omelet and was nursing a mug of coffee while he worked on his second stack. Angel’s a strapping, soft-spoken man with steel-colored hair pulled straight back into a ponytail. He usually wore white shirts that looked fresh from the dry cleaner and today was no exception. A longtime Texas Ranger who went private, he took me under his wing after Jeff arranged for us to discuss my future as a PI.

  “Now, fill me in on this case,” Angel said after swallowing a mouthful of pancakes. “The client’s that sweet little girl I sent to you, right?”

  “Yes. Megan Beadford.” I explained what had happened yesterday, then said, “I thought she’d forget the whole mother hunt after her adoptive father was murdered, but she wants me to keep looking. Trouble is, I’ve got next to nothing to go on.”

  Angel dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin and checked the pristine shirt for traces of breakfast. Satisfied he hadn’t spilled anything, he said, “You brought the file?”

  I handed a thin folder across the table. We were sitting in a back booth of Angel’s favorite twenty-four-hour restaurant. Sunday’s after-church crowd, replete with screeching, whining children, filled every table. Another throng of adults and toddlers swelled out the door waiting for their turn at breakfast mania.

  Angel thumbed through the meager pages of Megan’s file and stopped at one sheet. “No match at the Central Adoption Registry. Too bad.” He looked up. “But I see no court filing to open the adoption file. That’s the next logical step.”

  “Megan nixed that suggestion. She believed a court case would be hard to hide from her family.”

  He shook his head, tight lipped. “Secrets. Everybody with their damn secrets. Keeps us working, though, huh?”

  I smiled. “Sure does. That’s why I couldn’t contact the lawyer who handled the adoption. I have a name—Caleb Moore—but since he was hired by James Beadford he would have been obligated to notify Megan’s father before talking to me.”

  “That’s true. So now you’ve learned something about the PI business if nothing else. It’s about pulling rabbits out of sombreros.” He continued thumbing through the file. “What’s this?” He held up Kate’s psychological profile of Megan and the summary of their counseling session.

  I told him about partnering up with Kate and my reasons for doing so.

  “Smart girl. But that doesn’t help you find people, especially those who don’t want to be found. And I see that in this case you’ve got the birth certificate and little else. Pretty challenging.”

  Our waitress passed by, slipping a new carafe of coffee onto the table and nodding when Angel pointed at his empty plate to indicate he wanted another stack.

  I poured more coffee. Bad coffee. Weak and ineffective, like I felt.

  Meanwhile, Angel took a lipstick mirror from his shirt pocket and removed a molecule of blueberry from between his front teeth.

  A lipstick mirror? Who said Vanity, thy name is woman? “Did you just have those teeth bleached?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Friday. Do I look good?”

  “You smile like that again and I might need to put on my sunglasses.”

  He held the mirror eye level and bared his teeth. “So it’s a bad job? Too fake?”

  I laughed. “You’re good-looking enough to make a glass eye blink.”

  “Wiseass.” He tucked the mirror back in his pocket and returned to the folder, this time pulling out my copy of the birth certificate. He studied it for several seconds. “At least you got the hospital name, but where is Kingston Bay?”

  “Right across from NASA, a town with only about a dozen streets. There’s a good-sized medical facility, though. St. Mary’s. It serves the astronauts and the Clear Lake area.”

  “You went there, I assume?”

  “Sure. But the administrator I spoke with said their birth records only go back twenty years.”

  Angel huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Really? Hospitals do not destroy birth or death records, my friend, so I suggest you return and find someone else to talk to.”

  “But why would that man . . .” I didn’t finish the question because I knew the answer. Why does anyone lie? Because it creates less problems for them than the truth.

  Angel nodded sadly, reading my expression. “You see? Everybody lies. But as I tell my son, the truth is worth hunting down. Each nugget you find is like a treasure from God. Our job is to collect those tiny pieces and pass them on to the client. Sometimes those little nuggets turn out to be priceless jewels.”

  I smiled. “You have a way with words, señor.”

  “One more thing. The birth certificate is a lousy copy. Have you had a good look at the client’s state-issued document?”

  Texas does not issue original birth certificates but rather certified copies with the state seal. The last time I saw it was when I scanned Megan’s copy for my files. “No. I thought since all I needed was the hospital and city of birth, then—”

  “Get another look at hers.” He stared at me with an intensity that made his velvet brown irises seem almost black. “A good look.”

  “Okay. But did I miss something?”

  “We all miss things.” He tapped a manicured finger to his temple. “To see the answers you need a clear mind, but a clean copy doesn’t hurt.”

  I laughed. “So I did miss something.”

  “I do not know, Abby. I can tell you only what I would do if I were you.”

  “Then that’s good enough for me.”

  4

  I arrived back home around one P.M. and had a message from Quinn Fielder. Sounding polite but authoritative on my machine, she informed me my assistance was needed with some photos taken at the reception. She gave the address of the Seacliff Police Station and told me she expected me by four P.M. at the latest.

  Great. Thanks. I poked the delete button. Felt good to delete her. But of course I had to comply. This was about helping Megan, not about my own ego.

  I went to my office to put away Megan’s file and found Diva asleep on my desk. She knew the most pleasant spot in this house of chaos, maybe even sensed my new office was where I felt most at home.

  The room had been shipshape since the day after I moved in. My work space. All mine. I had moved in Daddy’s computer desk and it took up most of the room, that and his worn red leather wing chair, which I now reserved for clients. I’d mounted his gun case and added my own two handguns to his collection. Since I hadn’t been to the shooting range in over a year, that’s where they belonged. Daddy always said you shouldn’t carry a weapon if you’re not trained or you’re out of practice, and he was right.

  I sat on my standard issue but comfortable office swivel chair and lifted Diva into my lap. She tolerated me for twenty seconds before jumping away and hopping onto the windowsill. She inserted herself between the vertical blinds and did some window-shopping for the many birds and squirrels that populated the neighborhood.

  After turning on the computer and checking my e-mail, I did a search for Caleb Moore, the attorney used for Megan’s adoption. I wanted to be prepared to act should she change her mind about contacting him. Most firms had a Web site these days, but since Megan was twenty years old, this guy could be retired or dead. Sure enough, when I got a hit on Moore it was for the man’s death notice in the Galveston Daily News archives two years ago. More searching found him to be the attorney of record in the bankruptcy of a local manufacturing plant, but that was all. Literally a dead end.

  I sat back, wondering what I should do next. My Internet options were limited. Maybe after I worked at this job for a while, I’d have more courage to deal with the underground searchers, those less-than-lega
l resources who can gain access to private information in exchange for considerable money. Hacking into closed adoption files was not a good idea for someone working toward a PI license. There had to be a less risky way to get what I needed.

  I glanced at the computer clock and decided to let the detecting go for now and head for my meeting with Fielder. But when I reached the kitchen and pulled my car keys from my purse ready to head out the back door, I glanced down at what I was wearing. Jeans and a Houston Rockets sweatshirt. New, expensive jeans since I trimmed down to a size six, but still jeans.

  I had to change. And comb my hair. And—wait a minute. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I left dressed as I was, before the green-eyed monster had me hunting through boxes for one of my old low-cut, sequined prom dresses.

  The sand-colored brick Seacliff Police Station sat on a side street off Highway 146 several blocks from the bay. Sago palms flanked the double glass doors and inside a pockmarked young man wearing the tan uniform I had become so familiar with yesterday after Mr. Beadford’s murder sat at a dented metal desk to my right. The speckled vinyl tile bore grayish mop streaks and untouched grime had collected in every corner. The place smelled musty even though dry hot air blasted from a ceiling vent.

  The young man stood. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Abby Rose. Chief Fielder wanted to see me.”

  “Yeah, she said to—” His desk phone rang and he picked up, listened for a second, then said, “The chief has no comment. This is an ongoing investigation.” He replaced the receiver gingerly, still staring at the phone. “Reporters have been calling all day. Last murder we had was five years ago, and it was nothing like this. Vietnamese fisherman got into it with his partner and stabbed him right through the gut with this old shark spear. Only had two calls from the press on that one. But this here? I can tell you—”

  “Thanks, Officer Henderson,” came Fielder’s voice from a hallway straight ahead. “I’ll meet with Ms. Rose in my office.”

  She gestured from the shadowy corridor for me to follow her, and I left Henderson sitting at his desk doing nothing, probably because that’s what he was good at. That and running his mouth.

  Dark wood paneling, circa 1970, lined the hallway and the worn dingy carpeting was probably about the same vintage. Fielder disappeared through a doorway to my right and I came in on her heels.

  The old world ended and the new millennium began inside her office. The wood floor gleamed, her huge oak desk commanded the room, and an air purifier hummed in one corner. I caught a hint of lemon polish and above me an antique brass and walnut ceiling fan looked as if it was hot off the assembly line.

  On the wall to my right hung a massive framed photograph of a man wearing the Seacliff uniform, only with a lot more brass than I’d seen on Henderson at the front desk. The man in the portrait looked to be in his sixties and an engraved metal placard confirmed this: “Chief Quinton W. Fielder, 1940-2002.”

  So policing was a family business, huh? Was that how she’d landed the top job at such a young age? Probably.

  “Thank you for coming, Ms. Rose,” Fielder said.

  “No problem.” To my left photos were spread on a conference table and the map I’d drawn yesterday was tacked to a bulletin board on the adjacent wall.

  Fielder’s eyes bore shadows beneath, evidence of a sleepless night. She wore blue trousers and an aqua-striped oxford shirt, the buttons strained thanks to her more than adequate breasts. Badge and gun were attached to her belt. Maybe she was going straight from here to compete for a spot in a “Girls with Nightsticks” Playboy layout. Good thing I was wearing a sweatshirt. Sweatshirts hide even what you don’t have.

  She had walked over to the table. “I hope you can help me with something.”

  “Sure.” I joined her, deciding that being polite and cooperative were the order of the day for Megan’s sake.

  She held up a picture, one taken on the front steps of the Beadford house. It showed the bride and groom entering, the crush of guests in their wake and the professional photographer snapping away.

  “This was taken about the time Kate and I arrived,” I said.

  “Good. Now, here’s the same photo.” She slid an identical 5 by 7 across the table, but this one had grease pencil cross outs on all the people in the picture but one, the woman in the beige pantsuit and brown hat. She was standing alongside the photographer and looking down into the viewfinder of a digital camera pointed at Megan and Travis.

  Fielder tapped the unmarked face. “Did she sign the book?”

  “No. She came late to the church. Mrs. Beadford might have gotten her signature, though. Have you found the book?”

  Fielder reached into a file box under the table and produced the album. “Mrs. Beadford tucked it away in an upstairs bedroom for safekeeping. But after interviewing her—”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s doing better. Came home from the hospital last night. But she claims everyone at the reception signed or made congratulatory notes except for her.” Fielder nodded toward the picture. “Neither Mrs. Beadford nor anyone else in the family knows who she is. And if she came inside after taking her photos, no one remembers seeing her. How about you?”

  I mentally scanned the room where the strings played, then searched my memory bank for images of the great room. Nothing. But I was certain that if I had seen her, I would have remembered her because of my failure to get her to sign the book. “We never crossed paths in the house, but I spent most of the time in the kitchen with Kate and the caterers. She could have come and gone by the time I had a chance to mingle with the guests.”

  “Maybe,” said Fielder.

  “James Beadford could have invited her,” I said. “Or she could have been someone’s escort.” But another possibility popped into my head. Had the questions I’d asked a few weeks ago at the hospital where Megan was born or even Megan’s request to the adoption registry flushed a bird from cover? A mother bird who couldn’t resist a wedding?

  “I’ve considered those obvious possibilities,” Fielder said. “You didn’t see anyone with this woman at the church, did you?”

  “No. She was alone.” Shoving aside my excitement at the possibility the mystery woman could be Megan’s mother, I said, “Maybe she was a reporter for the local paper? The Beadfords seem well-off and the newspaper might have wanted to cover the event for the society page.”

  Fielder’s eyes narrowed and I surmised from the twitch in her jaw muscle that she didn’t appreciate I may have come up with something she hadn’t considered.

  “I know this town, Ms. Rose,” she finally said, her tone as frosty as the air outside. “Number one, I doubt she works for the paper. Number two, unlike where you come from, we don’t have a society page.”

  Unlike where I come from? Was she referring to Houston in general or had Jeff told her about my former life as a do-nothing heiress while I had been imprisoned in the laundry room yesterday?

  “I need more information from you, Ms. Rose,” Fielder went on, her demeanor controlled, her voice devoid of emotion now. She walked over to her desk and sat, gesturing at the armchairs across from her.

  I took a seat.

  “I’d like to hear more about the rehearsal dinner,” she said.

  “I told you what I know.”

  Fielder leaned toward me, fingers intertwined on top of the desk. “Are you sure?”

  “As I said before, I noticed lots of bickering, but I got the feeling the family was pretty much acting as they always do, or at least that’s what Megan indicated.”

  “I want facts, not guesses,” she said.

  I pictured a scarlet A for “Attitude” embroidered on her shirt. Trying not react to my emotions, I said, “I already told you about the tension concerning the TV that Holt brought with him. And I noticed Travis and his new father-in-law engaged in a lively discussion at the reception.”

  “They argued?” She pulled a legal pad toward her. Patches
of new color spread beyond her blush.

  “That would require an assumption,” I said.

  She looked down at her pad, jotted a few notes.

  “Anything else you saw or heard that might be important?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “You’re free to go,” she said abruptly.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, “but I was always free to go.”

  Since I was already in Seacliff, I swung by the Beadford house to see Megan, hoping I could also pick up the birth certificate as Angel had suggested. I parked the Camry on the Beadford’s cul-de-sac and slid from behind the wheel, deciding I would keep my speculation about the mystery woman to myself. Megan had enough on her plate right now.

  The setting sun tinged the horizon beyond their house a deep orange, seagulls squawked above me, and the smell of dead fish hung in the air. The crime scene tape had been removed, but one forgotten strip on a front hedge blew in the breeze like an enemy flag. I grabbed the remnant and stuffed it in my jeans’ pocket before I knocked on the door.

  Courtney Beadford answered. Unlike the day of the wedding, both earlobes were cluttered with rhinestones and metal studs. She also had an amber stone embedded in one side of her nose, and a small gold ring pierced an eyebrow. Her blunt-cut hair of midnight black looked uncombed, and her pasty face was powdered unevenly with makeup too dark for her skin. Bloodred lipstick completed the attempt at modern art.

  “Oh. It’s you,” she said tonelessly. “She’s in the kitchen.”

  Leaving the door open, she turned, shuffled through the foyer, and started up the left staircase. She was wearing an orange middrift T-shirt and low-rise jeans that had slipped down past her protruding pelvic bones. Anorexic? I wondered. Or just too busy abusing substances to eat?

  I made my way to the kitchen and found Megan and Travis hovered over Sylvia, who sat at the table with documents, several sets of gold cuff links, and a row of men’s ties before her. A woman in a peach jumpsuit with Enchanted Occasion Caterers embroidered in coral on the pocket stood near the sink stacking trays and plates onto a wheeling cart.