Veil of Night: A Novel Read online

  While Garvey went to his desk, Eric called a clerk in Evidence who owed him a favor, and was just thumbing through his messages when Garvey called him over.

  “Got something interesting from DMV,” Garvey said. “Guess who owns a silver Mercedes.”

  Mercedes was a big clue. “The senator,” Eric said. “No shit?”

  “No shit. This case just got a whole lot stickier.” A rich politician was about as sticky as it could get, and they both knew it.

  “And turned our potential number one suspect into our potential number one witness.” Which wasn’t also without problems. Now that they had a direction, they could show Jaclyn photographs of various gray-haired men, with the senator’s included, to see if she could identify him, but that was one of the aforementioned problems. He was a state senator who was running for Congress; his political ads were all over television. She could easily “recognize” him from those ads. Eric wanted to make an arrest, but above and beyond that he didn’t want to make the wrong arrest.

  Right now they didn’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant of the car, and he’d really, really like to have one. But they didn’t have enough to get a judge to even listen to them, plus the senator had an alibi in his girlfriend. They had a direction, and they’d keep chipping away. Alibis could be rattled. For that matter, if it got out that the senator had a girlfriend, Fayre Dennison might step in and do her own rattling.

  “I think you need to talk to Jaclyn Wilde again,” said Garvey. “See if you can get a more detailed description of the man she saw.”

  Eric thought of the detailed schedule that had been in her briefcase. For the remainder of this week, at least, he knew exactly where she was going and when she’d get there. Being organized was a wonderful thing.

  “I’m on my way,” he said.

  As he turned away, Garvey said, “Wilder.”

  Eric stopped and looked around, eyebrows raised in question.

  “Tomorrow morning, if you think about stopping to get a cup of coffee … don’t.”

  There had been times when Madelyn had overseen an event feeling so ill she could barely hold her head up, but if she needed to be there, she’d made the effort. Through headaches, menstrual cramps (those were finally, completely in her past, thank God), and stomach viruses, she’d been there, though with the last she’d always wondered how grateful the bride would be if she came down with the virus during her honeymoon. She’d always done her best to limit direct contact when she’d been sick, but if no one else had been available to take her place, she’d done her job. She felt pretty much the same that night, approaching the rehearsal with a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” attitude. What choice did she have? Just because Carrie Edwards had gotten herself killed, that didn’t mean time stopped for other brides. Life went on. Premier went on.

  She had to steel herself to face the rehearsal tonight, and the wedding tomorrow, with a smiling face. No one wanted an event planner with the face of Doom, but, damn, with the mood she was in, this was going to be tough.

  The bride, who was really a sweet young woman, had an almost pathological love of the color pink that had turned the wedding into an explosion of bubblegum. Pink flowers, pink invitations, and miles of pink ribbon. There were pink bridesmaids’ dresses, pink candles, and even the groomsmen’s cummerbunds were pink. The wedding cake was strawberry, with pink icing. At least the cake was decorated with white roses instead of pink—someone had pointed out that pink roses would get lost against the pink icing, so the bride had given in on that detail.

  Even the rehearsal wasn’t safe. The bride wore a pink dress, and the groom sported a matching tie. Each and every bridesmaid was wearing some shade of the color, though tonight they didn’t match. Their pretty—and colorful—dresses ran the gamut from pastel to hot pink to raspberry. The bride’s mother was wearing a lovely champagne suit, and carrying an oversized bright pink purse. There were big pink flowers on the groom’s mother’s long, flowing skirt.

  There was even a touch of pale pink on Peach’s flower-print blouse.

  Wearing a sharp teal suit, Madelyn felt like a fish swimming in a sea of pink. It wasn’t just the color of her clothing that set her apart, it was the mounting anger and frustration she didn’t dare let out. She wouldn’t ruin this special event for any of them, not for anything in the world.

  If this wasn’t just like Carrie Edwards, she thought resentfully. Why couldn’t the woman have gotten herself murdered on a week when they didn’t have an insane number of weddings to handle? She’d be a cross to bear to the bitter end.

  Peach leaned over and whispered to Madelyn, “I think I’m going to puke.”

  Madelyn glanced meaningfully at the pink on Peach’s blouse and gave her friend a warning glare, but the glare didn’t last. Her sense of humor recovered a little at Peach’s priceless expression, as she attempted to conceal her horror from the wedding party which, to be honest, wasn’t paying a bit of attention to either of them. They stood well to the side, watching the rehearsal, and no one had heard the whispered comment.

  “It was an accident,” Peach whispered, picking surreptitiously at a tiny pink flower on her sleeve. “Unless I had a psychic moment, or something. I mean, I knew the wedding was pink, but the rehearsal, too?”

  There was some confusion about when the ring-bearer, age five, should go down the aisle. The flower girl, age three, was adamant that she should go first, because she was a “gwill,” and “gwills always go fust!” Madelyn stepped in and explained to the silky-haired little demon that the really important people went last, and that’s why the bride was the last one in the parade down the aisle. The little girl looked thoughtful, then decided she didn’t want to be in the stupid parade anyway.

  Okay, this was going to be fun.

  The bubblegum wedding was nowhere close to being the most horrendous event Premier had ever taken on; in fact, it wasn’t even in the top ten. If she’d been in a better mood, Madelyn might even have found the excess of pink innocently charming, because after all their job was to give the bride what she wanted, to make her day special and, fingers crossed, trouble-free. This particular bride had wanted pink, and lots of it, so they’d given it to her. From fabrics to flowers to cakes and napkins and tablecloths and bridesmaids’ gifts, Premier had delivered. There were so many different shades of pink, making sure everything coordinated had taken some time and research. Maybe damn near everything in sight tomorrow would be pink, but by God every single scrap would be well-coordinated. Clashing shades were not allowed. The effect didn’t look bad; it was even pretty, if she’d been in the mood for pink.

  Aside from the profusion of one color, getting this particular wedding put together had been a breeze. Both families were nice, everyone was friendly, and there wasn’t a drama queen in the bunch, except for the flower girl. The bride and groom were obviously very much in love. They were lovely, pleasant young people who looked at each other with stars in their eyes. If it would help all their weddings go this smoothly, Madelyn would gladly invest in a pink wardrobe of her own. Maybe matching pink suits for everyone at Premier. Pink business cards. Hot pink Jags. Jaclyn would be horrified at the very idea.

  For the first time in this very long day, Madelyn felt a hint of a real smile briefly touch her lips.

  When the rehearsal was successfully over and the flower girl convinced that she’d be the star of the show if she agreed to go down the aisle ahead of the bride, the bride’s mother very graciously invited Peach and Madelyn to dinner, which was being held at one of the finest seafood restaurants on this side of town. On another night she might have been tempted, but it had been a very long day. To be honest, she was tired of being “on,” tired of pretending that everything was all right when nothing was all right. Madelyn smiled and declined the invitation, and reaffirmed the time for their meeting at the church tomorrow evening.

  In the parking lot, Peach followed Madelyn to her car, instead of heading for her own. “How’s Jacly