The Silent Bride (31 page)

Forty

"Hey, what's your hurry,
querida
?" Mike caught her as soon as she stepped into the squad room.

"Gotta pee. Be right back."

She brushed past him, found the lieutenant's bathroom, cursed because there was no dssue, used some from her purse. She washed her hands and face with the grimy soap chip on the sink. No paper towels, either. They didn't keep up the housekeeping here. Muttering, she glanced up for a moment to see how bad she looked. She was startled by the shadow of a dragon, snapping its tail deep inside the mirror behind her miserable reflection. She clapped her hands the way the noisemakers did on the Chinese New Year to chase away evil spirits. The clap jogged her memory. Wendy had done a wedding on Martha's Vineyard a month ago. Now her assistant was there on vacation. She flushed the toilet with her foot and forgot about applying lipstick. Something was up with Massachusetts.

Mike was waiting for her when she came out. "We located Tito and Louis, just in case you're interested," Mike said.

"Where?"

His hps disappeared in a grimace under his mustache. "At Louis's shop. The two alibi each other again. Louis says they worked half the night last night setting up, then returned to the shop around eleven. They've been there ever since." He lifted a shoulder.

"Very convenient, but he lied about that last time," April remarked.

"Right, we can't rule them out now. The Ubu story is up for grabs, too."

"We're way behind the curve,
chico.
You heard Wendy's fiance was her stepbrother? Missed that one." She shook her head. "Missed a few other things, too."

"Uh-huh." Mike planted himself against a wall of wanted posters, looked pretty tired.

"The shooting must have broken up the family. The parents moved away a while ago. But Wendy still has ties. She did a wedding there a month ago."

"No kidding. April?"

"Yes. Mike?" April poked him to get by.

"Not you,
querida,
the month. Who gets married up there in cold, rainy April?" he mused, still keeping the wall up.

"Someone did. I have to go to Martha's Vineyard." April had stopped trembling. The female fog of yin had been replaced by the male energy of yang when she didn't need food, didn't need sleep. She could feel energy spiking her system. How long it would last she didn't know. She wanted to keep at it, though. She knew all these wedding people were intertwined somehow. Covering for each other. And the one who'd kicked Mike in the face, now on suicide watch at Bellevue. All in it together. The how and why was what they didn't know.

"You want to tell me why?" Mike said.

"Lori Wilson, the assistant. All these people and their movements. And the house. Houses are powerful things. I want to get a look at the house." She was certain Wendy had lied about the house.

"Okay." Mike watched her think.

"Look, we'll talk about it later. I want to get back to her."

Mike shook his head. "We're going to Sutton Place. Poppy wants to take a go at her now."

April shook her head, disappointed. "But I was getting somewhere."

"Let's go talk to Mr. Hay and his butler before their memories blur." Mike pushed off the wall.

"We were just establishing a rapport," April protested.

"She'll keep."

April frowned. "She won't keep. She'll shut down. I know this woman."

"But you're going with me," he said.
"Vamos."
He smiled ruefully at the door. There was nothing he could do. Poppy was the boss.

"Fine." Frowning, she swung her purse over her shoulder. Sutton Place it was.

Forty-one

A
nthony Pryce set out milk, sugar, and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies. He was wearing a crisply ironed pair of chinos and a white shirt. His eyes were red, but his face was composed and his movements quick and sure. Relegated to a yin position again, April's energy faded down to a shadow. Suddenly she was dead tired.

She watched Anthony's intense focus on correct service, her thoughts flashing like a neon sign to Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard. What a waste. After an hour with Mr. Hay, all they got from him was a deep conviction that the shooter was very tall. Who was tall? Louis and Wendy were tall. The African in a psych ward at Bellevue was tall. Why couldn't he remember anything else?

Anthony set down a white china coffeepot, a matching teapot, and a plate of cookies, arranging them just so on the table. Then he quickly attacked a wayward cookie crumb, brushing it off the polished wood into his hand. A perfectionist. Good. April's nose twitched at the deep and smoky aroma of Lap-sang souchong infusing in the teapot.

She and Mike sat at a small table on the window end of the kitchen in a grand apartment that overlooked the East River. At eight o'clock it was dark outside. Over in Queens the lights twinkled on a cool and silvery city evening. Mike ate a few more cookies, deep in his own thoughts. April's paranoia uncoiled just enough to make her wonder if he knew something he wasn't sharing.

Anthony disappeared into the butler's pantry around the corner, then reappeared with two dessert plates and two linen napkins. He set down the plates, folded the napkins, went back for a pitcher of water and two glasses.

"We have food. I could make you a sandwich," he offered.

"No, thanks. This is terrific." The plate of cookies was nearly gone and so was Mike's coffee. "Have a seat," he said.

"It's no trouble." It was clear Anthony didn't want to take a seat. He poured more coffee in Mike's cup, continuing to hover.

Mike raised his eyebrows at April. Food?

"No, thanks," she echoed, dying for a sandwich but not enough to take the time for him to make one.

"I read about that other girl in the paper," Anthony said. He brushed at the crumbs that littered Mike's side of the table.

"Did you know her?" Mike asked.

"No, no, of course not. It was in the Bronx, wasn't it?" he kneaded his hands nervously.

"Yes, Riverdale."

"This is so upsetting. Who would do this?" His eyes filled. "Did the same person kill both girls?"

"It's a possibility," Mike said slowly.

"When that girl was shot, the first thing I did was go to St. Patrick's to look around."

"Why?" Mike was surprised.

Anthony finally sat down, his face suddenly animated. "Someone attacked the cardinal there. A few months back, do you remember that?"

"Yes. Were you expecting something to happen?"

"No, not expecting, really, but you have to be vigilant. People will do anything in these troubled times. We can't ever forget that, can we?" Anthony found another crumb.

"Did you have any special danger in mind?"

"The Hays are Irish."

Mike's eyebrows shot up like flags.
Ah, the Irish.
He caught April's eye. "Do you think there's an Irish connection to the shooting?"

"Everything's so political now, isn't it? One can't ignore the risks."

"Are you Irish yourself?" Mike asked. Everybody had a natural enemy these days.

"I've lived in Ireland, of course. Thaf s where I met the Hays. But no, I'm Welsh," Anthony said proudly.

"So you think there may be some political motive at work here? Can you be more specific about your concerns?"

"I thought about it, that's all," Anthony said vaguely.

Mike glanced at April again. Her face was the Great Wall of China. Impenetrable.

"When you went to St. Patrick's, what were you looking for?" She spoke for the first time.

"I try to be thorough. It's my responsibility to see that things go smoothly." Anthony brushed the hair out of his eyes.

"You thought something could go wrong?"

"I told you, there was the other girl. And the cardinal. It worried me."

The phone in April's purse started to burble. She located it, checked caller ID. It was Ching. She turned the phone off, then tossed it back into the mess.

"Tovah Schoenfeld was not Irish. She was an Orthodox Jew," Mike pointed out.

"I heard something about that. It just made me think, that's all. People get ideas from these things. Politics, it makes sense, doesn't it?"

Not really. "What did you hope to find?" Mike asked.

"I was concerned about people walking in and out throughout the ceremony. I wanted to see how that would be."

"You didn't know it would be private?"

"No. And maybe he didn't either. That's why he shot her outside."

Click. Ah, it might have been someone who had been inside but went outside when the cathedral was cleared.

"Are you certain it was a he?"

"They've asked me that. I don't know. I didn't really see much. It was so sudden. I just saw the flash of gray, the raincoat. I never even saw the barrel of a gun. It might have been a revolver. There was just a little sound. More like a cough than a pop. She just..." Anthony shook his head as if it were his fault. "I just didn't see it coming."

"I know you've gone through this with the officers before, but we want to see what we can do to jog your memory. Just for a few seconds. Try to tell us what you saw, what you might not even know you saw. It's okay if you just give us impressions."

His color leached out as he searched his memory. "It's like a black hole in my mind—" He stopped. "All I can think of is I was struggling to keep the umbrella over her head, their heads. Then blood spurting out on her dress. So much blood. It covered her in a second. She drowned in it." He reached for his own neck.

April's heart thudded.

"It was so . .. horrible.
Horrible!
I was trying to hold the umbrella over them. The wind changed; it turned inside out. I let it go and I saw .. . her eye was gone." His shoulders shook. "All I know for sure was that the man's raincoat had a hood."

"Were you aware that Wendy Lotte was the party planner for both weddings?" April asked.

"Yes. After the first girl was killed, it was in the newspapers."

"Were the Hays concerned?"

"About their daughter, yes. About Wendy, no. They trusted her."

"How about you? Did you trust her?"

"No."

"Was that why you went to St. Patrick's?"

"No, I didn't trust her because she has light fingers," Anthony said.

"You mean she steals." A confirmation of what they knew. April glanced at Mike. His eyes flickered.

"I'm not accusing. It's just possible," Anthony said, neutral.

"How about the florist? Anything unusual about him?"

"I don't know anything about him. He never came to the house."

April began to revive with the tea. "Did you drive Prudence everywhere?" "Pretty much."

"Great. Let's go back through the week. Everything she did, who she saw, that kind of thing."

Anthony nodded and poured more tea. It was going to take a while.

Forty-two

T
he dog was barking, and Kim was upset. Wendy wasn't answering her phone, and he had no one to talk to except his wife. Clio wouldn't let him near the phone. She stood in front of him, pushing the broom against him so he couldn't get to the phone without hurting her.