The Silent Bride (16 page)

"I had no idea they'd bury her so fast. It's so difficult with all these restrictions." She hurriedly ticked them off on her fingers. "No communication on Friday after dark until Saturday after dark. That's twenty-four whole hours of every week out the window. Believe me, that can be quite a hurdle when you have details that need attention. I had to learn all this. I've never done Orthodox before. You know anything about them?"

"No, tell us," the Chinese said.

"No answering the phone when you're in mourning. Who would think of it? I can't imagine how the arrangements get done." Wendy lifted her eyes heavenward. "Not that I'm judgmental about customs. I work with all kinds of people," she amended quickly. Now the phone rang in her office. She ignored it.

"How do arrangements get done?"

"I gather there's some sort of temple fellowship that takes care of everything so the family doesn't have to think about it. They don't allow flowers." Wendy glanced at her watch, blew air out of her mouth to control her impatience.

"I asked the caterer to help. They're a very nice kosher couple, by the way. They wanted to know what to do with the food from yesterday. No one ate. Mr. Schoenfeld didn't want to
pay
for it after what happened, so I told the Goldsteins to take that food right over to the house and set it up for the shivah." Wendy was proud of this maneuver. The delivery of the food was done in the guise of kindness, and she knew Mr. Schoenfeld would have no choice about paying for it now. Luckily she'd learned a long time ago to take her own cuts up front and in commissions along the way. A lot of vendors could go unpaid for this kind of disaster.

"And the Goldsteins did it?"

"Oh, yes. Smart people always take my advice. Thinking ahead is the key to my business." Wendy wanted to be alone and wondered what she should do to make these two cops happy and go away.

"Would you like something to drink, a glass of champagne?" she offered. She was longing for a glass herself.

"No, thanks."

"Are you sure, April?"

Wendy was good at names. April Woo. She wouldn't forget it. Mike Sanchez. She wouldn't forget that, either. They were sitting there like two Do-bermans, waiting for a reason to attack. She could see the gun on one of them, but they weren't acting like any cop from any cop show she'd ever seen on TV, or like that Bronx detective who kept calling and harassing her just because she was out of sight for ten lousy minutes.

She glanced pointedly at her watch again. Nearly eight-thirty and she had fifty messages to return.
Please go home now,
her smile said. No such luck. At the sound of her name the Chinese frowned. Wendy's agreeable expression didn't change. She knew that look. Chip-on-the-shoulder look.
I'm a sergeant. Don't call me by my first name.
All that garbage.

"Then how about a glass of water, Sergeant?" Wendy sweetened her tone, aware that she was taller than both cops, had good breeding, was well dressed. All that made her feel in control.

"Maybe later," the sergeant replied.

Wendy smiled at the rebuff and crossed her legs for Lieutenant Latino, who was staring at her with undisguised interest. Wendy had good long legs. She was wearing a short skirt and beige-and-camel alligator pumps, good copies of the real Hermes ones. She thought of herself as a beautiful woman and sat at ease on her modern modular sofa. She'd had a few drinks to calm down after her fight with Louis. But not too many to lose her edge, she thought. Like her mother and father, she could hold her liquor. And then she'd opened her last bottle of Tovah's wedding champagne. Alcohol didn't bother her. She was still in control.

The telltale signs of her solitary tippling—the open bottle and empty crystal flute—were on the cocktail table, but they didn't bother her, either. She was in her own home; there was no law against having a glass of bubbly at the end of a long day.

She smiled again at the Latino wearing cowboy boots. "How about you, Lieutenant?"

"Nice place you have," he remarked.

"Thank you." But Wendy knew it was just okay. She lived on Seventy-second Street and Lexington Avenue. Her five rooms were light and airy. Her wood floors were pickled white and her decor was modern. Beige was the darkest color in her decorating palette. But it wasn't Park Avenue. Not at all what she would have if she married someone who could double her income. She tapped her foot, anxious for them to go.

"Do you mind if I use the bathroom?" the Latino asked.

"Of course not. Right this way." She led him through the office. He went into her second bathroom and closed the door. She hesitated at the desk, listening for the sound of water in the bowl. She waited in there for the toilet to flush. She did not want him opening her closets or files, or messing with her computer. The toilet flushed. He took some time running water. She began to worry about the cop in her living room. Which one should she watch? Finally he opened the door.

"May I look in your albums? I'm getting married myself," he said.

"Congratulations," she said curtly. "Why don't you bring it into the drawing room with you?"

He picked one up and took his time slowly turning the pages of an album featuring table settings with elaborate centerpieces. Wendy ducked out the door and was alarmed not to see the Chinese in the living room. She hurried out of the office to find her, then exhaled with relief. Woo was standing at the window, studying the photos in a
Bride.
Sanchez came out of her office with two albums. "Sergeant, this may interest you," he said.

The two of them put their heads together, flipping the pages of an album that showed the whole process: invites, table settings, menus, decorations of churches and other sites, tents, favors, wedding gowns and tuxedos. They seemed impressed.

"Okay, now that you know what I do. I told you I was in the ladies' room when it happened; are we all square now?" Wendy was finished being nice.

The Woo woman looked up, puzzled.

"Isn't the ceremony the most important moment in a wedding?"

"Not for me. We practice the walk together, but then there comes the moment when they just have to muddle through themselves." Wendy slid over the single facet of her job that made her queasy.

"You went to the ladies' room?"

"Yes. I told you that." Wendy showed irritation for the first time. "I'd been there all day. Not only with the florist to supervise setting up the
huppah
—I'm sure you noticed it; it was huge—and the caterers setting up the party space
and
the seating plan for the tables. And they dressed and had their hair and makeup done right there in the temple! It was a madhouse with all those girls assembled there. Crowded and hot, tempers volatile. Six girls in there! The mother and the grandmother." Wendy shuddered at the chaos.

"But you went to the ladies' room at the exact moment when the service started. Isn't that unusual?"

Wendy made an impatient noise. "Not for me. Look, don't you people coordinate? I told that other detective that I needed to pee. I hadn't had a moment to myself all afternoon. So I went
then.
It seemed a good time."

"What about the family?"

"Oh, don't get me started. It was weird. This big producdon for a girl who wasn't all there."

"What do you mean?"

"It was sad. When we were going through the planning stages, Tovah was kind of out of it. Her mother and grandmother pulled all the strings."

The Chinese was interested. "Do you think maybe Tovah was coerced into the marriage? Did she have another boyfriend?"

"Oh, no. It was more like she was on drugs or something," Wendy said slowly.

"Drugs?"

"Yes, she had a kind of stoned look, maybe tranquilizers." Wendy lifted her shoulders, glancing at the champagne. At least half a bottle remained. Her buzz was dulling. She needed a lift.

"Was there anybody else in the bathroom with you?"

"Oh, I don't remember." Wendy shook her foot. They were back on the bathroom. "Let's see, yes. I think there were. Several people. Look, it's really late...."

"One last question. If I understand this correctly, you were downstairs in the party room when the family was getting ready. Then the family went upstairs and spent about twenty minutes in the rabbi's study before the ceremony, signing papers and doing the business before the procession got under way. Where were you then?" Woo asked.

Wendy blinked. "I don't understand the question."

"What were you doing before you went to the bathroom?"

"Oh, I was outside having a cigarette," she said quickly.

"Thank you. We're about done for the moment. I'd like a list of your events for the last year or so," Woo said.

"Why?" Wendy was stunned.

"Routine," the cop said. "And then we'll get out of your hair."

Eighteen

"Thanks for the diversion,
chico."
April glanced at

A the menu at the uptown Evergreen, known for its good dim sum.

"You're welcome. Find anything interesting?"

"The woman's a pack rat. You running a check on her?"

"Yeah. I get the feeling something's off there. She wanted to come into the bathroom with me."

"Since when is that a negative with you?" April tried to laugh off some nervous energy.

"She didn't want me alone in her office," he elaborated.

"What didn't she want you to see?"

He shrugged. "You got her client list."

She nodded. "She certainly didn't want me to have it. If you think there's something in her place, we can always get a search warrant. I'm really bothered by her time frame. She said she was out having a cigarette while the Schoenfelds were in the rabbi's study. But she's no smoker."

There had been no ashtrays, no lighters, or cigarette butts in her apartment. No odor of smoke in her clothes. Smokers smelled; their homes smelled, too.

No amount of scented candles or bowls of potpourri could quite cover it.

"Besides, if she needed to pee, wouldn't she do that first and then go out for a smoke?"

"She's a boozer. Maybe she slipped out for a drink."

"Yeah, she's a drinker," April agreed.

"I don't want Hollis in there," Mike was saying. "He's got his own thing going here. Maybe he's checking guests and staff for someone who saw her in the bathroom. Maybe he knows something we don't know."

"Maybe, but I still don't see her as our killer." April shook her head at the thought. "Twenty-some minutes is a long time to disappear, but what would be her motive? The Schoenfelds were clients of hers. She was trying to get that Orthodox business."

"Maybe she was playing another angle."

"What?" April knew a lot of Chinese like Wendy— self-important people who never stopped talking and arranging things
their
way. The political ones made trouble. Manipulators. Look how Wendy had engineered getting the wedding food to the funeral.

Not only that, Wendy looked as if she were all set for her own wedding, with cupboards stocked with many pairs of candlesticks, crystal glasses, bowls and plates all with their labels sdll affixed. Stacks of table linens: napkins and place mats still tied in white ribbons. Lot of stuff in there. The woman was a pack rat, a hamster. What did she get, free samples?

Mike was busy with his Department minicomputer. April sighed, grateful that the long day was over. She lifted her hot hair off her neck and clipped it into a ponytail, pleased that it had been her turn to win the daily debate between Chinese and Mexican food. This reminded her of the wedding food on the banquet table at the Schoenfelds' house. Funeral food now. She knew a little about Jewish cuisine from her days on the Lower East Side. Smoked fish and meats, pickles and pickled herring. Knishes, noodle pudding. Gefilte fish. Chopped liver, all heavy stuff.